My information Resource (blog.mir.net)

 

Microsoft Virtualization

The Microsoft Virtualization solution consists of four virtualization technologies: server, application, presentation, and desktop. Together, these technologies provide you with a complete desktop-to-datacenter virtualization solution that can help you create a dynamic IT infrastructure. This free Learning Snack highlights various features and benefits of the four virtualization technologies. It also takes a closer look at server virtualization and how it is implemented and managed in the Windows Server 2008 operating system

 

Intro to Windows Server 2008 Virtualization

This Snack explains the new virtualization features in Windows Server 2008 and lists the system requirements. It also demonstrates the steps necessary to install Windows Server virtualization.

 

Green IT and Virtualization

Organizations are becoming increasingly aware of the environmental and business benefits of adopting a Green IT environment. This Learning Snack highlights how virtualization facilitates a Green IT environment. It describes the Hyper-V server role and the System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) tool, which help create and support a virtualized infrastructure in Windows Server 2008.

Here a a few bite size modules on technology that are easy to watch and learn about.

Windows Vista Essentials

This Snack describes some of the innovative new features in Windows Vista, including a sidebar that provides information at a glance. It showcases the Windows Aero technology and demonstrates the improved file organization techniques. In addition, this Snack walks you through the various ways you can search for information on your computer or on the Internet.

Deploying Windows Vista

Microsoft provides a range of tools and utilities that can help organizations successfully deploy Windows Vista. This Learning Snack describes how to deploy Windows Vista across a network and demonstrates how to create Windows Vista installation images and deploy them on desktops on a network. It also provides guidelines and best practices for deploying Windows Vista in an organization.

Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack

The Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack (MDOP) is a suite of products that can help organizations implement the Core Infrastructure Optimization (Core IO) model. This Learning Snack explains how the MDOP facilitates Infrastructure Optimization (IO). It also demonstrates procedures for recovering lost files and managing Group Policy objects (GPOs) by using products in the MDOP suite.

THE FORECAST IS TOUGH. BUT THERE IS A WAY TO WEATHER THE STORM.

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There’s never been a more critical time than now to show employers you have all the right professional credentials. Get Microsoft Certified now.

Microsoft Corp.’s MSN Games, one of the leading online casual games portals, today announced the launch of two game applications on social networking sites Facebook and MySpace. MSN Games delivered classic puzzle game “Hexic” to both communities for the first time along with “Chess,” a fresh take on another classic. Both games were developed by Microsoft’s Carbonated Games studio, and the applications were developed by Plexipixel.

“We’re excited to bring two of our most popular games to the Facebook and MySpace communities,” said Megan Hodel, marketing manager for MSN Games at Microsoft. “These networks reach more than 200 million people around the world, and the MSN Games applications will make it easier and more fun for Facebook and MySpace users to play some of their favorite casual games.”

Both of the MSN Games applications reward users via collectible merit badges for playing and achieving skills, and feature leaderboards, news feeds from MSN Games, and the ability to share the applications with friends. The applications feature full Facebook integration, including notifications when badges have been awarded and games completed. MSN Games has also launched a dedicated page on Facebook, where casual game fans can download the game applications to their personal page, view videos, and post pictures and messages.

“Chess” features asynchronous multiplayer functionality, so that users can play their turn whenever they have time to log on and make their move. The application also allows users to track their long-term progress against friends using the ELO rating system.

More information is available at http://msngames.com/apps.

Attention Students! Help Change the World and Win a Trip to Egypt!

Imagine Cup is the worlds Premium Technology Student Competition focused on solving real world issues. Submit your project idea by April 1st for the Imagine Cup Digital Arts Categories.

Why participate?

To beef up your resume and get potential exposure to agencies . To make a difference by actually changing the world . You’ll be the potential winner of up to $8,000 for your team and a trip to Egypt for the WW Finals

http://imaginecup.com/Default.aspx

Creating Tags

do you have problem finding the pictures or videos that you have taken ?

You can use a feature called TAGS – the allows you to organize by adding a descriptive Label (TAG)

Steps are as follows;

1. Double click on a picture and when the files open go to the INFO pane

2. Click on add TAG

3. Add  the new tag (Name, subject, or anything that you search by)

4. Your picture or video now as a tag that you can search on.

There is a major security hole is ALL Versions of Adobe Reader and Acrobat!

 

The fix is being worked on if you are using a 3rd party to read your PDF you ok. If you are using ADOBE products be very careful The patches will not be out till March 11. 2009

Here is the article directly form Adobe

—————–

Buffer overflow issue in versions 9.0 and earlier of Adobe Reader and Acrobat

Release date: February 19, 2009

Vulnerability identifier: APSA09-01

CVE number: CVE-2009-0658

Platform: All platforms

Summary

A critical vulnerability has been identified in Adobe Reader 9 and Acrobat 9 and earlier versions. This vulnerability would cause the application to crash and could potentially allow an attacker to take control of the affected system. There are reports that this issue is being exploited.

Adobe is planning to release updates to Adobe Reader and Acrobat to resolve the relevant security issue. Adobe expects to make available an update for Adobe Reader 9 and Acrobat 9 by March 11th, 2009. Adobe is planning to make updates for Adobe Reader 7 and 8, and Acrobat 7 and 8, available by March 18th. In the meantime, Adobe is in contact with anti-virus and security vendors, including McAfee, Symantec and others, on this issue in order to ensure the security of our mutual customers. More information on protection for this issue from anti-virus and security vendors is now available on the Adobe Product Security Incident Response Team blog.

Reports have been published that disabling JavaScript in Adobe Reader and Acrobat can protect users from this issue. Disabling JavaScript provides protection against currently known attacks. However, the vulnerability is not in the scripting engine and, therefore, disabling JavaScript does not eliminate all risk. Should users choose to disable JavaScript, it can be accomplished following the instructions below:

1. Launch Acrobat or Adobe Reader.
2. Select Edit>Preferences
3. Select the JavaScript Category
4. Uncheck the ‘Enable Acrobat JavaScript’ option
5. Click OK

A security bulletin will be published on http://www.adobe.com/support/security as soon as product updates are available.

All documented security vulnerabilities and their solutions are distributed through the Adobe security notification service. You can sign up for the service at the following URL: http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/entitlement/index.cfm?e=szalert

Affected software versions

Adobe Reader 9 and earlier versions
Adobe Acrobat Standard, Pro, and Pro Extended 9 and earlier versions

Severity rating

Adobe categorizes this as a critical issue and recommends that users update their virus definitions and exercise caution when opening files from untrusted sources.

Revisions

February 24, 2008 – Advisory updated
February 19, 2009 – Advisory first created

This drives a important point and maybe why Google email is still BETA.  When you use a Online provide for your email do you have a guarantee uptime ? What can they do with your data, can they profile you  by searching your email ?

This comes from Google

Dear Google Apps customer,

Between approximately 9AM to 12PM GMT / 1AM to 4AM PST on Tuesday, February 24, 2009, some Google Apps mail users were unable to access their accounts. The actual outage period varied by user because the recovery process was executed in stages. No data was lost during this time. The root cause of the problem was a software bug that caused an unexpected service disruption during the course of a routine maintenance event. The root cause of this unexpected service disruption has been found and fixed.

Additional Details

A few months ago, new software was implemented to optimize data center functionality to make more efficient use of Google’s computing resources, as well as to achieve faster system performance for users.

Google’s software is designed to allow maintenance work to be done in data centers without affecting users. User traffic that could potentially be impacted by a maintenance event is directed towards another instance of the service. On Tuesday, February 24, 2009, an unexpected service disruption occurred during a routine maintenance event in a data center. In this particular case, users were directed towards an alternate data center in preparation for the maintenance tasks, but the new software that optimizes the location of user data had the unexpected side effect of triggering a latent bug in the Google Mail code. The bug caused the destination data center to become overloaded when users were directed to it, and which in turn caused multiple downstream overload conditions as user traffic was automatically shifted in response to the failures. Google engineers acted quickly to re-balance load across data centers to restore users’ access. This process took some time to complete.

The recently launched Apps Status Dashboard includes greater detail on this February 24th incident, including actions we are taking to continually improve performance. For a direct link to this Incident Report, visit http://www.google.com/appsstatus/ir/1nsexcr2jnrj1d6.pdf (English only).

For ongoing service performance information, please access the Apps Status Dashboard at http://www.google.com/appsstatus (English only).

We are very sorry for the inconvenience that this incident has caused. We understand that system problems are inconvenient and frustrating for customers who have come to rely on our products to do many different things. One of Google’s core values is to focus on the user, so we are working very hard to make improvements to our technology and operational processes so as to prevent service disruptions. We are confident that we will achieve continuous improvements quickly and persistently.

Once again, we apologize for the impact that this incident has caused. Thank you very much for your continued support.

Sincerely,

The Google Apps Team

As a request of Neverfail I am removing the past post and Including this instead

READING, UK and AUSTIN, Tex. – Feb. 24, 2009 – Neverfail^®, a leading global software company providing affordable continuous availability and disaster recovery solutions, today announced a new OEM license agreement with VMware.  The deal incorporates Neverfail’s continuous availability technology and application management framework (AMF) software into the new VMware vCenterTM Server Heartbeat, a new VMware product that monitors and manages the automatic failover of VMware vCenter Server.

VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat can provide proactive protection against planned and unplanned downtime for VMware vCenter Server, protecting customers’ investments in their VMware Infrastructure deployments and ensuring that key capabilities such as VMware VMotionTM and VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) are continuously available.

With this OEM agreement, VMware extends its ability to protect VMware vCenter Server against a broad range of downtime risks by replicating the server configuration and data to a passive standby server. It monitors VMware vCenter Server connectivity and components, including the license server and VMware Update Manager, and can restart the entire VMware vCenter Server instance on the passive server. This helps ensure the consistent, reliable operation of VMware vCenter Server if it is threatened by unplanned or planned downtime, and it provides the broadest range of protection against operator errors, operating system or hardware failure, or external events.

“Over the years, our customers have come to depend on VMware Infrastructure as a flexible and reliable platform on which they can run their production applications.  At the same time, they have turned to VMware vCenter Server to ensure proper management of their virtualized applications and infrastructure,” said Patrick Lin, vice president, product management, server business unit, VMware. “By utilizing Neverfail’s proven industry-leading availability technology to provide comprehensive protection for the entire VMware vCenter Server stack, customers can help ensure that VMware vCenter Server’s virtualization management capabilities are continuously available.”

In January 2008 Neverfail introduced Neverfail for VMware VirtualCenter (now called VMware vCenter Server) which has seen a growing level of interest and use by blue-chip organizations. The same technology behind Neverfail for VirtualCenter forms the basis of VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat.
“As a recognized leader in keeping users productive 24×7, we’re delighted that VMware chose Neverfail as the technology provider to power this new product,” said Nick Harmer, VP Alliances, Neverfail. “VMware vCenter Server is a mission-critical application that requires continuous availability. With thousands of organizations around the world already leveraging Neverfail to deliver continuous availability of their critical applications such as email and databases, it was a natural fit for our technology to be used to assure the resiliency and reliability of VMware
vCenter Server.”

VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat will be available in March 2009. It will be available directly through VMware reseller and distribution channels and supported directly by VMware

This posted has been rmove on the request of NeverFail