I was checking out some of the apps on the Windows Phone marketplace. I came across this gem and realised that it has just been released. It’s called Getmusic . (Getmusic web site: http://www.getmusic.com.au/ ) It’s a music player / service where not...

Hello everyone, As most of you probably know by now I’ve taken on a new role in the company. I am now working with the DPE team as an Architect Advisor and bringing my security background to our Cloud Services offerings and Windows Phone 7 platform. ...

The Microsoft Solution Accelerators team is pleased to announce the release of new resources that you can use in combination with the Microsoft Security Compliance Manager tool: the Windows Server 2008 R2 Security Baseline and the Office 2010 Security...

Today Microsoft and Telstra announced the launch of the Telstra Windows Phone 7 Social Review, a competition for social media-savvy consumers to win the opportunity to receive and review the new Windows Phone 7 handset, the HTC 7 Mozart.   Twenty...

The latest SIR is available now from Microsoft. You can find it here: http://www.microsoft.com/security/sir/default.aspx   Industry wide vulnerabilities continue their downward trend . However High Complexity vulnerabilities rose a bit ( http://www...

We’ve been talking about the Cloud for a long time. In fact Bill Gates talked about Microsoft’s commitment to it in 2002 in one of his keynotes so it’s nothing new to Microsoft. We’ve been providing Cloud based services quietly for about 15 years now...

Do you have a passion for securing software systems? Are you an expert in the field of software security? Are you persuasive? Would you like the challenge of finding and delivering best of industry consulting in software security? Can you generate business...

  Virtual Machine Servicing Tool (VMST) 3.0 – Now Available! The increasing use of virtual machines—for purposes ranging from support of older operating system environments to power savings—has created new challenges for IT. In particular, virtual...

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 it’s almost time for Tech Ed Australia again. I’m busy prepping sessions and getting excited. After two years of putting everyone in the track but myself, I’m back in it. Two sessions this year, Federated Identity in the Cloud and Hacking: Top 5...

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...

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...

If you want to develop secure reliable software, you have to start with a known quantity. Every time you try to re-write or re-invent a piece of code, you run the risk of introducing vulnerabilities.  As I always say, use tried and tested components...

The future of security baseline management has arrived. The new Security Compliance Manager will enable you to plan, deploy, operate, and manage your organization’s security baselines for Windows® client and server operating systems, and Microsoft applications...

On April 29th, Microsoft Technical Fellow, Mark Russinovich, will be leading a discussion around the process of planning, testing, assessing and rolling out Windows 7 in an enterprise organization. Mark will be joined by a panel of IT professionals who...

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...

If you have downloaded and used the Azure Training kit you may have noticed that some of the samples use the WRAP v0.8 protocol in the Access Control Service demos.  Then if you get some of the sample code from some of the PDC 09 demos, and try to...

For those of you who were waiting to get a chance at Azure, we’ve now expanded Azure to 41 other countries including Australia .  Currency pricing is still in USD, EUR or AUD though.  But I suppose places like Hong Kong are pretty used to converting...

Visual Studio 2010 is finally on the shelves so to speak.  Today is the opening of general availability for VS 2010.  I’ve been using it for a while for my Azure development among other things and I have to say I like it.  I was a bit concerned...

Well, while the newness hasn’t worn off the netbooks from Tech Ed AU ‘09 , it’s already time to start thinking of Tech Ed AU 2010.  I believe I will be the track owner for the Security Track again this year and this year, I want it to be the best...

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...

I’ve been trying to be more active on my blog now that I have made time for it.  But with the holidays upon us, I may skip a week or two. ;-) Above all, I wish everyone a happy holiday season and an excellent new year!

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 .”...

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...

I’ve been noticing a disturbing trend lately. Everyone is so hard up to get on the Internet Advertising band wagon and make their millions that they have given up providing content. In fact when you look at a lot of “news sites” it seems that they don...