The Platform and the Hardman : Platform

Live Mesh Advertising Campaign

Matthew Hardman — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 12:37:13 GMT

Just came across this cool promo clip for Live Mesh, which really hits an emotional edge, sharing memories anywhere and on anything.

Some of the things I thought were cool:

* Photos being synchronized with the digital photo frame

* Sync being used in the car

* XBOX Sync

Pretty cool in a connected world!

Jeff Jones Security Blog : Download: H1 2008 Desktop OS Vendor Report - Vulnerabilities and Days-of-Risk

Matthew Hardman — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 17:21:45 GMT

Jeff Jones has released his six monthly report on desktop OS security vulnerabilities and Days-Of-Risk.

One highlight was the pie chart on security vulnerabilities in the different OSes.

This certainly is in contrast to what a lot people are saying that Linux and Mac are more secure.

Jeff Jones Security Blog : Download: H1 2008 Desktop OS Vendor Report - Vulnerabilities and Days-of-Risk

Windows Media Center Sandbox - Screencast: Creating A Simple Media Center Application

Matthew Hardman — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 20:58:54 GMT

Just wanted to point you all to two great screencasts on how you can develop applications on Windows Media Center. Personally I love Windows Media Center, it is the center of my entire home entertainment experience, it is networked and streamed all around my house. My wife at first was not interested, but now she cant live without it.

I think this is a great platform for consumer focused applications, and would love to see what the general public can come up with on this platform. Check it out at the following link.

Windows Media Center Sandbox - Screencast: Creating A Simple Media Center Application

Moonlight (Silverlight on Linux) – Interview with Miguel de Icaza

Matthew Hardman — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 08:03:37 GMT

Code to Live: Dancing in the Moonlight with Miguel de Icaza

The interview is a bit old, but has just been published. Miguel de Icaza talks about Moonlight and how it came about. Thanks to Josh Holmes for posting it.

Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V now available for download!!

Matthew Hardman — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 06:13:29 GMT

Hi All,

Exciting stuff on the wires, the update to Windows Server 2008 with the RTM code for Hyper-V is now available.

This is what Dennis and I were talking about in our last video.

I hope to find some time to do another video showing how to setup Hyper-V and get some good ole fashion Virtualization going :-).

Anyway, got Windows Server 2008? Download Hyper-V now at the link!

Download details: Update for Windows Server 2008 x64 Edition (KB950050)

Why Virtualize?

Matthew Hardman — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 10:20:12 GMT

Episode 2 of our ANWYCDFYSBWYSCDFY, on Hyper-V. This video is more of a discussion about what Dennis is doing in the Microsoft Singapore Innovation Center to take advantage of Hyper-V being released as a part of Windows Server 2008. No demo content here, but more an explanation of the benefits that can be realized by the customer.

I think I might follow up with a short video this week on how easy it is to get an environment set up on Hyper-V, this technology is very cool.

Want to go to Macau on Microsoft's expense?

Matthew Hardman — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 09:00:10 GMT

A colleague made me aware of this competition that they have launched around "Software + Services". All you need to do is to record yourself and friends delivering the "Software + Services" story based on the article located here as a guide. An explanation about the competition about the author himself...

If your video is chosen then you and a friend can find themselves jetting off to Macau to stay at the recently opened Venetian Resort.

The resort is pretty sweet, I went to visit it myself when I took the family over for a vacation, very classy...

Jump on over to the site http://www.bringitalltogether.asia/ now to enter!!

Server Core "Theoretically" reduces the number of Security Bulletins

Matthew Hardman — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:34:47 GMT

Just after publishing our video on Server Core, I visited Jeff Jones Security Blog, and found this post

http://blogs.technet.com/security/archive/2008/06/12/download-server-core-potential-security-benefit.aspx

on how having a server OS being installed in a "Core" installation mode, would have reduced security vulnerabilities for Windows Server 2003, if the option was available.

At the blog post there is a report you can read which goes through various benefits from a security point of view for installing Windows Server Core.

ANWYCDFYSBWYSCDFY - Episode 1

Matthew Hardman — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:06:17 GMT

Welcome to the first edition of ANWYCDFYSBWYSCDFY (Ask not what you can do for your server but what your server can do for you).

Yes Ill admit its a terrible title, but the intent behind these videos is to quickly show you what can be achieved with Windows Server 2008 and its various features. They videos themselves aim to be informative and fun, so we hope you feel the same way when you watch it too!

Please do leave your comments and feedback if you feel these are beneficial to you, or that you just enjoy watching them.

Thanks,

Matty H

Making Security Better for the IT Pro

Matthew Hardman — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 10:29:52 GMT

I literally just stepped out of keynoting the latest Technet Security Event for Microsoft Singapore. The question I posed to the attendees at the event, "What things can Microsoft be doing better for IT Professionals in Singapore with regards to security."

The following were some of the responses

Free Security Exam Vouchers
2 Day Security Camp
Publicize Security Events better
Establishment of a forum for people to ask questions and get timely responses
Giving away Partner Action Packs or Technet Plus
Greater exposure to Microsoft Security Products and Technologies
Bring Tech Ed back to Singapore

There were lots of good suggestions, so while I go away and have a think about what we can do locally in Singapore, please let me know if you support any of the above suggestions or have suggestions of your own, then please feel free to comment.

Windows Server Hyper-V RC1

Matthew Hardman — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 04:29:48 GMT

Got to say I am very excited about the eminent release of Hyper-V to Windows Server 2008. I have been running Windows Server 2008 on the machine for a while and it continues to impress.

Hyper-V is one of those technologies is really going to help customers achieve a number of cost reductions in their organizations ranging from Data Center space to carbon reductions.

Check out the article from eWeek on their Lab tests of Hyper-V.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Infrastructure/eWEEK-Labs-Tests-Microsofts-HyperV-RC1/

Ruby on Rails, Silverlight and IronRuby

Matthew Hardman — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 07:15:25 GMT

Was just chatting to my colleague John Lam, the drive for IronRuby in Microsoft about his recent participation in RailsConf 2008. At the event there were two cool things that they showed.

1. Silverlight plugin for Ruby on Rails, bringing the richness of Silverlight applications to Ruby on Rails.

2. Getting IronRuby to run on Rails, as noted he indicated that performance still needs to get worked on, but it is a step in the right direction.

Read more about their progress at John's Blog.

Up and running on Windows Server 2008

Matthew Hardman — Thu, 29 May 2008 09:27:45 GMT

Well I just recently rebuilt my Power Laptop (Dell XPS 1710) on to Windows Server 2008. Why, you may ask? BECAUSE I CAN!!! Not really, I wanted to try and give the Hyper-V components a whirl and try out some of those features.

However one problem I did come across after getting Windows Server 2008 installed, was that the Windows Live Installers would not run on Windows Server 2008, so no Live Messenger and no Live Writer.

Lucky enough I finally found a supported installer for Live Messenger at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=D78F2FF1-79EA-4066-8BA0-DDBED94864FC&displaylang=en.

It was the Live Writer component that was a little trickier as there was no other installer that would support the Windows Server 2008 environment. Finally I found a blog from Daniel Larson, that helped out with it all. When you think about it the solution makes so much sense, and in a way where the deployment of .NET applications are managed so easily.

Because Live Writer is a .NET application, you are able to essentially copy the directory of Live Writer from a machine that it is working on, and then copy it to a location on your Windows Server 2008 machine.

Run the .exe, and away you go...

So where am I blogging from... my Live Writer running on Windows Server 2008 of course :-).

Hope this helps someone.

Learning to Love UAC...

Matthew Hardman — Wed, 28 May 2008 05:45:16 GMT

I know a lot of people get annoyed by the UAC feature in Windows Vista, but here is a reason to inspire new love for this protective prompt.

" Love or hate its nagging prompts, Vista's Account Control feature (UAC) has a security feature that marks it out from any other type of Windows security programme -- it can spot rootkits before they install."

"The results for Vista products were harder to assess because only six rootkits could run on the OS, but the testers had to turn off UAC to get even this far. Vista's UAC itself spotted everything thrown in front of it."

PC World - Business Center: Vista's Despised UAC Nails Rootkits, Tests Find

Expanded Format Support in Office 2007

Matthew Hardman — Thu, 22 May 2008 07:10:23 GMT

There is some great news coming out of Redmond today around some of the feature improvements being delivered via Office 2007 Service Pack 2, scheduled for the first half of 2009. Service Pack 2 will incorporate document support for

XML Paper Specification (XPS)
Portable Document Format (PDF) 1.5, PDF/A
Open Document Format (ODF) v1.1

What does this mean?

Well it means that when uses create documents in Microsoft Office 2007, they can save it in to any of the formats natively (without having to install third-party updates).

Now of course some people will say what about the recently approved OpenXML standard? Well much of that standard is already supported in Office 2007 today, but we will see the full implementation of OpenXML in the next version of Office code named "Office 14"

Then in addition to all of this goodness, Microsoft is also committed to providing the ability to open, edit and save documents in the Uniform Office Format (UOF), which is the Chinese national document format.

There is always going to be a lot of sensationalism about Microsoft supporting ODF, especially when OpenXML has just been approved, but that is not the way to look at this announcement. Lets be clear, I don't see this as being all about ODF and OpenXML, in fact there are three other standards being supported here in addition to ODF. This is Microsoft, being a responsible company, listening to the customer, understanding their needs, and working to deliver a solution that delivers the greatest choice.