Bridging from MOF Guidance to Microsoft Products

From an outside perspective, you might think that the Microsoft Operations Framework (MOF) is explicitly tied to Microsoft Products. It is not.

MOF was specifically designed to be technology agnostic, and address the operational, people, and process aspects of effectively running IT services within a business. You can follow MOF recommendations even if you are running JBOSS and Apache on Unix Servers with Firefox clients. That said, we have some excellent products at Microsoft, and I’m glad to see that the MOF team has released guidance and recommendations on how Microsoft Products can be used to support MOF processes. The new Bridging from MOF Guidance to Microsoft Products: A MOF Companion Guide is an excellent paper. Not so much for listing Microsoft products, but because it lists some great platform-specific resources that can help you to achieve each objective.

Paper Overview

The MOF/Microsoft products companion guide bridges the gap between high-level service management processes and real-world application by clearly outlining how to apply MOF concepts using Microsoft products. The best practices outlined in this guidance will help facilitate collaboration between IT process and IT technology professionals, and make it easier to achieve improved service management outcomes in a timely manner.

Download Bridging from MOF Guidance to Microsoft Products: A MOF Companion Guide

Additional MOF resources:

• MOF Portal
• Diagrams of MOF Management Reviews
• MOF Reliability Workbook for DirectAccess
• MOF Reliability Workbook for Exchange 2010 Client Access and Transport
• MOF Reliability Workbook for Exchange 2010 Mailbox Services
• MOF Reliability Workbook for Forefront® Unified Access Gateway
• MOF Reliability Workbook for SQL Server® 2008

Source: Bridging from MOF Guidance to Microsoft Products

Tarieven 3G-bundels voor iPad bekend

T-Mobile introduceerde dinsdag een prepaid internetbundel, speciaal bedoeld voor iPad-klanten. Vanaf vrijdag is het simpakket met de microsimkaart beschikbaar in twee versies: 200 MB voor 9,95 euro en 2 GB voor 29,95 euro. De bundels zijn helaas maar 30 dagen geldig. Zonder bundel kost 1 MB 20 eurocent. Een normaal Web'n'Walk-abonnement mobiel internet kost 10 of 15 euro per maand. T-Mobile's datasnelheden zijn wel een stuk lager dan die bij Vodafone en KPN.

Vodafone introduceerde dinsdag ook twee iPad-abonnementen, die gelukkig per maand opzegbaar zijn. Voor 20 euro krijg je 500 MB en voor 30 euro 2 GB. Dat laatste tarief is dus hetzelfde als bij T-Mobile. Overigens heeft Vodafone ook andere, langere microsim-abonnementen van 1 of 2 jaar, waarbij voor 50 euro per maand het gebruik helemaal onbeperkt is. Op die abonnementen geeft Vodafone de eerste 6 of 13 maanden een korting van 50 procent.

Vodafone heeft overigens ook sim-only prepaid-databundels: 2,50 euro per dag (35 MB datalimiet), 10 euro voor een week (150 MB), 20 euro voor een maand (350 MB) of 50 euro voor een kwartaal (1GB). Buiten de bundel kost het je maar liefst 33 eurocent per MB.

Update: Ook KPN en Hi krijgen nu speciale tabletabonnementen. Hi heeft een goedkope oplossing voor wie alleen zo nu en dan mobiel wil surfen op zijn iPad. Bij Hi geldt een basisbedrag van 2,50 euro per maand en vervolgens 2,50 euro per dag dat je surft (per periode van 24 uur), maar de limiet is slechts 50 MB per dag. Erg krap, maar wel het laagste maandbedrag. Kom je daar boven, dan betaal je 5 eurocent per extra MB.

Bij KPN zijn er twee speciale tabletabonnementen: 500 MB per maand voor 20 euro (tijdelijk 15 euro) of 1 GB voor 40 euro (tijdelijk 20 euro). Een extra MB buiten de limiet kost 18 eurocent. Bij KPN en HI zijn microsimkaarten overigens beschikbaar voor alle bestaande abonnementsvormen en belbundels. Maar bij de tabletabonnementen zijn ook de duizend KPN Wifi-hotspots door heel Nederland te gebruiken. De KPN- en Hi-abonnementen zijn ook maandelijks opzegbaar. Het Hi-pakket heeft geen Wifi-hotspots zoals die van KPN.

Bron: Bright.nl

Forefront TMG does not support CNG certificates

For those who think they can install a CNG (V3) Certificate on the new ISA server, Forefront Threat Management Gateway 2010, think again!

Yuri Diogenes's Blog (on TechNet) explaines some further details on this matter:

Today I was assisting a friend of mine here from TMG team that was facing this issue, same issue that was also mentioned on this thread. The problem was happening when using Cryptography Next Generation (CNG) or also called V3, TMG was not recognizing the private key and was showing up this error message. This is a known issue because TMG (and ISA) don’t support CNG (V3 Certificates). This is well documented under the unsupported documentation here:

Forefront TMG does not support CNG certificates Issue: Forefront TMG does not support the use of certificates created using CNG (Certificate New Generation) based templates for Web listeners or as client certificate authentication in Web publishing or Web chaining rules. Cause: CNG certificates are not usable by Forefront TMG. Workaround: Create certificates using Windows 2000 or Windows 2003 templates. From: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee796231.aspx#dfg9o9i8uuy6tre

Again, make sure to read this unsupported document before deploy TMG, there you will find the official statement from TMG Product Team about what it is supposed to work and what it is not.

Source: Incorrect Key Type when Creating a Web Lister on TMG using V3 Certificate

Office 2010 Administrative Template files (ADM, ADMX/ADML) and Office Customization Tool

Office 2010 Administrative Template files (ADM, ADMX/ADML) and Office Customization Tool

Overview

This download includes Group Policy Administrative Template files and Office Customization Tool files for use with Office 2010 applications. It also includes an \Admin folder with an Office Customization Tool, and ADMX, ADML, and ADM versions of Office 2010 system Administrative Template files. For administrative template files, you may use the ADM files for any Windows operating system, or the combination of ADMX and language-specific ADML files on computers running at least Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008. This download also includes a workbook (Office2010GroupPolicyAndOCTSettings.xls) that provides information about Office 2010 Group Policy settings and OCT settings.

Click here to download

Related Resources:

• Group Policy settings reference for Microsoft Office 2010
• Enforce settings by using Group Policy in Office 2010
• Office Customization Tool in Office 2010

EasyBCD 2.0 Makes Dual-Booting Easier, Now Supports Windows 7

EasyBCD 2.0 Makes Dual-Booting Easier, Now Supports Windows 7.

Windows only: Bootloader tweaking utility EasyBCD makes dual booting between Windows, Linux, and even OS X an easy task, and the latest version updates with support for Windows 7 and newer Ubuntu versions with grub2.

Once you've installed the application, you can easily edit, rename, reorder, add entries, and customize just about anything in the bootloader sequence for any number of installed operating systems. You can access a set of tools that will let you back up, restore, and repair your bootloader, and even change your boot drive.

The new 2.0 release of the application comes with a slew of changes, the most notable including Windows 7 support, bootable ISO images, and adding bootable USB drives to the bootloader. It's well worth a look if you're setting up a dual-boot configuration.

Download EasyBCD 2.0.1 (1337 KiB)

Source: http://lifehacker.com/5585157/easybcd-20-makes-dual+booting-easier-now-supports-windows-7

New Release of Oracle’s Sun Ray Software Available Now

Alessandro Perilli from Virtualization.info has a newsworthy item about Sun Desktop Access Client:

Oracle released yesterday version 5.0 of its Sun Ray Software, the solution introduced by Sun in 1999 to centrally control and power its Sun Ray thin clients. This release introduces a couple of major new capabilities.

First of all, the client part, called Oracle Virtual Desktop Client (formerly Sun Desktop Access Client) can be installed on Mac OS X.
On top of that the product now ships with a connector for VMware View 4, allowing the Sun Ray Clients to be used as View thin clients.

The server component is available for Oracle Enterprise Linux 5, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.5 Update 3, Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) 10 Service Pack 2 and Sun Solaris 10 5/09 for both SPARC and x86/x64 architectures.

The software update is available now for download and ships with Sun Ray 270, Sun Ray 2 and the new Sun Ray 3 Plus clients.

Source: Virtualization.info

Vyatta has released a Free VMware Network Virtualization Training

Erik Sloof posted some information of a new (free) training course from Vyatta:

Vyatta has released a Free VMware Network Virtualization Training: "Vyatta has released a new training course to help customers who are evaluating Vyatta for routing and security in VMware and XenServer. This course will show you common use cases as well as installation, verification and basic configuration of Vyatta OVF and XVA virtual appliances for adding routing & security to VMware ESX and XenServer environments.

Free - Watch this video now at: http://www.vyatta.com/promo/virtualfirewallcourse.php

This free training course is just one of over 20 courses in the Vyatta University curriculum. For a full course catalog visit: http://www.vyatta.com/services/training.php"

Direct link: http://www.vyatta.com/services/training//Vyatta%20Virtualization/player.html

Source: http://www.ntpro.nl/blog/archives/1541-Vyatta-has-released-a-Free-VMware-Network-Virtualization-Training.html

Service releases beschikbaar voor RES PowerFuse en RES Wisdom

Zowel voor RES Powerfuse als RES Wisdom heeft RES Software nieuwe service releases uitgebracht.

Met RES PowerFuse 2010 Service Release 1 worden Citrix XenApp 6 en Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 ondersteund, is er continuous background Folder Synchronization, een vernieuwde RES PowerFuse Workspace Extender en Subscriber en meer dan 80 enhancements en fixes.

RES Wisdom Service Release 5 biedt gebruikers ondersteuning bij de migratie naar het recent gereleasede Microsoft Exchange Server 2010. Met deze nieuwe service release blijft RES Wisdom het mogelijk maken voor IT professionals om combinaties van wijzigingen op de User workspace door te voeren en het aanbieden van IT resources te automatiseren, beide vanaf één centrale console.

http://www.ressoftware.com/19/75/nieuws/detail/res-powerfuse-2010-sr1-now-available.aspx
http://www.ressoftware.com/19/59/nieuws/detail/res-wisdom-2009-sr5-available-now.aspx

Install Google Web Apps in Google Chrome

Install Google Web Apps in Google Chrome: "If you use Google Chrome Dev Channel or a recent Chromium build, you can install 3 Google apps: Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Docs.

'An installed web app could be separated visually from other tabs, could integrate better with the OS, and could be granted increased permissions. Installing a web app in Google Chrome is easy and quick, with no restart required. At its simplest, installing a web app is like creating a super-bookmark to it,' explains Google.


To install a web app, you need to write a small Chrome extension that includes one or more icons, the URLs used by the applications and the permissions that are required.

Chrome already includes extensions for 3 popular Google services and here's how to add them:

1. Make sure you use Chrome Dev Channel 6 or a recent Chromium build.

2. Edit Chrome's desktop shortcut and add a command-line flag. In Windows, right-click on the shortcut, select 'Properties', append a space followed by --enable-apps in the Target field and restart Chrome.

3. Open Chrome, go to chrome://extensions and click on 'Developer mode'.

4. Click on 'load unpacked extension' and navigate to Chrome's resources folder. Here's the location of the folder in Windows:

%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\[Version]\resources (Vista, Windows 7)
%USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\[Version] \resources (Windows XP)

5. Click on one of the three folders: gmail_app, calendar_app, docs_app and repeat the steps 4-5 for the other two folders.

6. To add the applications to the tabstrip, you need to click on the icons from the new tab page.



Web apps are added to the new tab page, they use special pinned tabs that no longer include the Omnibox and the Gmail app has an option for desktop notifications, which doesn't seem to be enabled.

'Once installed, a web app gets a big icon in Google Chrome's app launcher area, as well as some integration with the host OS. When running, an installed web app has a special frame and other UI enhancements to make the web app easier to distinguish from other web content. This special treatment makes running apps easier to find and prevents accidentally opening multiple copies of them.'

Google will launch a Chrome Web Store for web apps, where you'll be able to find an install other applications. Until then, you can create extensions for your favorite web apps.