I’m considerably later than most of the pundits out there in writing about the latest release of Windows Live, but I’ve been busy exploring the new features in my new Live platform and wanted a better impression of what has been delivered before clicking the keys of my laptop.
I guess many of you will already have seen some of the new features, but behind the massive headline of SkyDrive going from 5GB to 25GB of free online storage, there is plenty more to experience. Perhaps one of the most significant is to take a look at what has happened to http://home.live.com. This is a complete redesign and re-engineering from the old page and seems to be the hub of a Live-based social networking tool. It’s become the central place for all the Live services linking email, Messenger, Spaces, photos and many more. One of the niceties of this is the personalised look and feel that is now consistent across all the Live services - from Hotmail to SkyDrive - with a wide range of choices to provide a design you want.
Back to Social Networking for a minute. The homepage provides an overview of the people in your network and this seems to be a mixture of Messenger contacts, Spaces friends and Hotmail contacts – I'm still getting to grips with this but so far it’s helping me to connect to new people already. An example is my colleague Remco - he is now one of my contacts in Live and I can now connect through to him and then his blog site which is in Dutch. Not a problem because I can use the live translation to convert it to a more readable (for me) language. There is also the possibility to link this with www.linkedin.com to draw contacts from there - not done this yet but perhaps soon.
Many of the installed software components have changed too and I now have the beta software for:
As usual from me, my best advice is to try it out and see what it can do for you. Naturally, all of this can be accessed from live@edu once your students have an active Live account.
Interestingly, http://home.live.com has picked up on my Office Live workspaces and integrated them straight into the home page, I find this a great way of keeping in the loop of activity in those workspaces. It looks like Microsoft is increasing the visibility to Office Live Workspace so great to see this linked into my home page.
For some time now I've been using Windows Live Translator on several sites published in different languages for both work and play. Just recently, I discovered that it can also be used on this blog to help anyone read it in their native language. If you scroll down the page a bit, you'll see this in the news section:
Simply use the drop down box to select the language you'd rather see the site in and away you go. So the news is that this can be put on any website with a simple bit of code available here.
Windows Live Translator can also be used to provide a link to another another website and translate it into another language. To understand that try the following:
University of Lyon's web site in French
University of Lyon's web site in English
Similarly here is Oxford University's website in Chinese (simplified).
and Perm State University's website from Russian to English.
The languages available today are:
The translation service can also be added to both Office 2003 and Office 2007.
Also on the subject of Windows Live Translator, you can also use it to translate Windows Live Messenger, this means that it's possible for you and your buddy to type in your native language and it will be translated on the fly. For more information visit here.
As you may know, I enabled Windows Vista’s BitLocker encryption on my laptop a couple of weeks ago, and since that time I have been reassured to know that should something happen to my laptop, all of the data on it is fully encrypted and secure. The whole process was very smooth – I simply enabled it in the Control Panel, and the encryption happened in the background over a morning. If you’re thinking of doing something similar for your laptops, you would benefit from reading an excellent TechNet article written by the Microsoft IT team – they’re the people that keep all of our in-house IT systems running.
The article deals with both the technical, and managerial issues, of managing the introduction, and also gives a unique insight into the challenges of change in a very tech-savvy environment. And the article is incredibly honest about the challenges faced, and the lessons learned. Here’s an extract:
Lessons Learned Lessons learned during Microsoft IT's BitLocker deployment include: Microsoft IT tried to retrofit the environment with BitLocker. A better approach would have been to move forward with new computers and then upgrade only existing computers that had the highest security risk. Microsoft IT thought BitLocker would be easier to deploy than it was. Microsoft IT relied on the BitLocker Preparation Tool to handle all aspects but found during testing that it failed in some situations, primarily due to locked files when trying to shrink the partition. Hardware needs rigorous testing at scale. Computers that test well in a lab environment sometimes yield different results in a production environment. In other words, one computer in a lab might look fine but thousands in the production environment have variance, such as differences in the BIOS. Recognizing high-business-impact data is a difficult, industry-wide issue. Few tools are available that enable organizations to find the types of high-business-impact data that users have on their computers.
Lessons learned during Microsoft IT's BitLocker deployment include:
Read the whole article here, and if you have time take a look at the whole IT Showcase section – a large section of the website in which the Microsoft IT team share their experiences in running a complex IT infrastructure (The “How Microsoft IT reduces costs” section is especially interesting)
This is a blog post for the hundreds of developers in university IT development teams that didn’t get the chance to go to PDC (in LA) or Tech Ed (in Barcelona). Because this time, you’ve got to stand a chance – it’s in London, it’s only a day – and if your boss is at Tech Ed in Barcelona this week*, he might feel guilty enough to say ‘yes’ if you catch him early Monday morning!
After all of the announcements in Los Angeles at the PDC Conference, it seems we’ve got a set of new announcements for developers heading our way next March.
On 23rd March, as part of the DevWeek conference, there’s a Microsoft Professional Developers’ Day
The Professional Developers’ Day (PDD) is a Microsoft exclusive, single-day event designed to give you an early preview of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework V4.0 as unveiled at the 2008 Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles. PDD forms part of the DevWeek 2009 pre-conference and promises to deliver a day full of rich developer content through a series of demo-driven, code-based technical sessions. The detailed agenda will be available in mid-November - bookmark the PDD page and check back for updateshttp://www.devweek.com/pdd/
The Professional Developers’ Day (PDD) is a Microsoft exclusive, single-day event designed to give you an early preview of Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework V4.0 as unveiled at the 2008 Professional Developers Conference (PDC) in Los Angeles.
PDD forms part of the DevWeek 2009 pre-conference and promises to deliver a day full of rich developer content through a series of demo-driven, code-based technical sessions. The detailed agenda will be available in mid-November - bookmark the PDD page and check back for updateshttp://www.devweek.com/pdd/
Although you'll have to wait until mid-November for the full and detailed agenda, but it's worth me writing about it now because the Professional Developers’ Day normally costs £269, but there’s a special early-bird booking discount of £169 if you book before 12th December via this link
* About 60 UK universities have sent people to the Tech Ed conference this week, learning all about implementation of new technology, so there’s a 30% chance you can find somebody who may be feeling guilty enough on Monday
The people that run our internal IT systems – Microsoft IT – regularly run workshops (both virtual and face-to-face events) when they share how Microsoft implements aspects of our IT systems, and especially the things we have learnt along the way.
Next Tuesday afternoon, they are running a webcast on Network Access Protection. This is a way of securing your network, allowing a wider range of devices to connect whilst ensuring that they meet the security standards that you have defined. In a university, this could allow you to provide better support for students’ own laptops without compromising your core ICT service.
As it’s being run from the US – it’s the Seattle team who are running it – it’s at a slightly inconvenient time (5:30pm), but I’m sure that there will be some really useful information. Here’s the details:
TechNet Webcast: How Microsoft does IT: Managing Network Access Protection Network Access Protection (NAP) is a powerful new Windows Server 2008 feature that can help protect networks from malicious software (malware) and other threats. This webcast explains how organizations can use NAP to institute requirements for accessing a network, create policies that check for compliance with those requirements, and update and manage devices that are not in compliance. Join us to learn how Microsoft IT manages NAP within Microsoft and how organizations can leverage this feature to report on health policy compliance, and to take action to address identified risks. Presenters: Brent Scallan, Senior Systems Engineer, Microsoft IT, Microsoft Corporation, and Pat Fetty, Principal Program Manager, Windows Server Team, Microsoft Corporation Brent spent his first 8 years at Microsoft in Support and Consulting working with several Fortune 100 customers on enterprise deployments of Active Directory, DNS, WINS, DHCP, RRAS, PKI, and IPsec, among other technologies. Brent also worked with enterprise customers through pre-release deployments of Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003. Brent has spent the past 2 years in Microsoft IT as a Senior Systems Engineer, dogfooding Windows Server 2008 and now Windows 7 specifically to deploy Network Access Protection (NAP) inside Microsoft. 11th November – 5:30pm (GMT)
Network Access Protection (NAP) is a powerful new Windows Server 2008 feature that can help protect networks from malicious software (malware) and other threats. This webcast explains how organizations can use NAP to institute requirements for accessing a network, create policies that check for compliance with those requirements, and update and manage devices that are not in compliance. Join us to learn how Microsoft IT manages NAP within Microsoft and how organizations can leverage this feature to report on health policy compliance, and to take action to address identified risks.
Presenters: Brent Scallan, Senior Systems Engineer, Microsoft IT, Microsoft Corporation, and Pat Fetty, Principal Program Manager, Windows Server Team, Microsoft Corporation
Brent spent his first 8 years at Microsoft in Support and Consulting working with several Fortune 100 customers on enterprise deployments of Active Directory, DNS, WINS, DHCP, RRAS, PKI, and IPsec, among other technologies. Brent also worked with enterprise customers through pre-release deployments of Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003. Brent has spent the past 2 years in Microsoft IT as a Senior Systems Engineer, dogfooding Windows Server 2008 and now Windows 7 specifically to deploy Network Access Protection (NAP) inside Microsoft.
11th November – 5:30pm (GMT)
It’s tagged by the technical team as “Level 300” – which means that you need to be a bit of a propeller head – I only ever understand about 50% of a Level 300 session!
More details, and registration, here
If you’re a follower of technology, you will have seen all of the news from Microsoft’s PDC Conference in the States last month, where there were the first insights into Windows 7 and the launch of our new Internet strategy with Windows Azure, Live Mesh etc.
Much of the coverage focused on the technology, but what made me sit up and take notice was that UK customers have been some of the first to start using these new technologies. For example, the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institute) were featured for their use of Windows Azure to help them grow their search and rescue systems. I’ve met the RNLI IT team a couple of times, and I know that they run a very sophisticated IT system, but it was a surprise to see that they were so involved in such leading edge technology.
They have been building a new system for lifesaving on Windows Azure. At PDC delegates saw this short video explains what the MOB Guardian system is all about and why they’re looking at Windows Azure as the next step forward to help them widen the use of the system.
(Video link)
In a nutshell, MOB Guardian is a device that sits on a seagoing vessel and fires an alarm to a monitoring centre should the crew get in to trouble. Scaling this system was the challenge and that’s where Azure comes in with compute power on tap and the potential for huge cost savings.
I'm back in Barcelona, actually I'm not as I write this but probably will be by the time you read it. Altogether I believe there are more than 80 people from UK universities looking to develop their understanding and capability to deliver great solutions to UKHE. It's an investment in both time and money for their institutions but one that they always tell me brings a significant return when they come back home.
If you're also here then please drop me an email or post a comment. If you're not here then follow what's happening through the site. Last year Ray and I were both present and updating the UKHE blog but this year Ray is staying back in the UK, leaving me on my own :-( but I'll try to provide updates when I can. In fact, I have got several other colleagues here too so I'll ask if they can take notes in their sessions.
As mentioned earlier, Office is coming to the web and for a look then please view this Channel 9 video:
First Look: Office 14 for Web
So they're talking about cross-browser with AJAX and/or Silverlight (BTW, the video is Silverlight in case you're wondering).
How useful will this be for students do you think? When combined with the full off-line capability of Office through deals like www.TheUltimateSteal.co.uk then I think we've got some really compelling options for students and I mustn't forget live@edu.
BTW - when I just did a search in www.live.com for live@edu the first link is the University of Northampton - fantastic! Try it:
http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=live@edu&src=IE-SearchBox&Form=IE8SRC
Yes, there are other search engines out there ;-) and yes I'm using Internet Explorer 8.
Following from my earlier Educause posting the other day, I'd like to introduce you to one of my fellow Microsoft bloggers Ural Cebeci. Ural is a senior product manager on the Office Live team and he was fortunate enough to be in Orlando this week for the Educause conference where he's showcasing our Software plus Sercices plans for Educaiton.
In particular, he's announcing Office Web applications for students, universities and consumers. Eventually extending to 4 of our office apps, Word, Powerpoint, OneNote and Excell and giving an office experience across PC's, phones and web browsers.
Read more here and expect even more soon.
https://officeliveworkspacecommunity.com/blogs/teamblog/archive/2008/10/28/microsoft-extends-office-to-the-browser-via-office-live.aspx
Whilst I'm not there this year, many of my Microsoft colleagues are in Orlando at this year's Educause conference. So sadly I'm missing out on meeting up with my colleagues who I rarely see, accompanying customers to various conference sessions, the lively conference atmosphere and all the announcements that this conference usually delivers. For news and highlights use the following graphic on their website which has logos from Office 2007.
For those attending and also for those like me not attending details of the sessions are here:
http://www.microsoft.com/education/events/educause2008.mspx
In particular, Anthony Salcito's keynote session on The next generation of computing: Software + Services Thursday Oct. 30 at 8:10 – 9:00 AM in room W223 is something I would love to have seen. I'm certain this will be a great blend of the announcements being made at Microsoft's PDC this week particularly around Windows Azure. This session will also focus on the Office Web applications and a specific mention of several universities that are already seeing gains from using live@edu and other services in the cloud.
I'm actually on holiday at the moment so shouldn't be writing this but I'm really very keen to learn more about Windows Azure and its potential for Higher Education. I'm hopeful that at next week's TechED conference in Barcelona I'll be able to learn a whole load more.