VMware CEO: Cloud to end computer desktop era

VMware CEO Paul Maritz urged customers to make the move from virtualization to cloud infrastructure

VMware CEO Paul Maritz urged customers to think beyond the desktop computer. It is a dead metaphor, he insisted, one ill-suited for today's workforce 70-640 Training.

"PCs are not the only animal in the zoo anymore. Increasingly, users are holding other devices in their hands," he said, speaking at the kick-off of the VMworld 2011, being held this week in Las Vegas.

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See products shown at VMworld

Within five years, less than 20 percent of computing clients will be running Microsoft Windows, he predicted. The job of providing applications and data "can no longer belong to any one device, or any one operating system. So we have to float away from that aspect of the desktop," he said.

While VMware has made its mark by providing software for virtualizing servers, the company is rapidly building up a stack of software for organizations to use to run private and hybrid clouds, based around its vSphere software for managing virtual resources.

In his presentation before many of the conference's 19,000 attendees, Maritz said customers should move from virtualization to a full-fledged cloud infrastructure. Fifty percent of the world's infrastructure runs on virtualization, he noted. The cloud is the next logical step, he reasoned.

A cloud infrastructure will be necessary, he noted, to accommodate the needs of a more dynamic workforce. It will enable administrators to deliver applications and information to people, rather than devices.

Some organizations seem to be moving in this direction. Maritz said that there are now over 800,000 vSphere administrators, including 68,000 certified in handling the technology.

"I spent my whole life working on the PC," admitted Maritz, who is 56. The metaphor of the desktop came from Xerox Parc research lab in the 1970s, which at the time, was exploring "how to automate the life of the white collar worker, circa 1975," he said. This meant the researchers made computer based approximations of the tools of the office worker--file cabinets, typewriters, files, folder, inboxes and outboxes.

"We got a great a desktop environment," he said. "The problem is the people under the age of 35 don't sit behind desks, and they don't spend all of their time lovingly tending to documents. They will be dealing with streams of information that will be coming at them in much smaller chunks and much larger numbers. We're moving into a new post-document era, and we will need different solutions."

Maritz then explained how VMware's products can provide a foundation for this new type of operation. VMware's vFabric provides a set of tools for developers to build applications that can run natively in the cloud. CloudFoundry provides a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) that customers can use to run their own applications on external hardware Free MCTS Training and MCTS Online Training. VMware View VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) software allows users to access their data and applications across a wide range of clients. And the recently released VMware Horizon provides an enterprise portal for users to easily access new applications.

Microsoft quietly finding, reporting security holes in Apple, Google products

Researchers at Microsoft have been quietly finding — and helping to fix — security defects in products made by third-party vendors, including Apple and Google.

This month alone, the MSVR (Microsoft Security Vulnerability Research) team released advisories to document vulnerabilities in WordPress and Apple’s Safari browser and in July, software flaws were found and fixed in Google Picasa and Facebook.

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The MSVR program, launched two three years ago, gives Microsoft researchers freedom to audit the code of third-party software and work in a collaborative way with the affected vendor to get those issues fixed before they are publicly compromised.

The team’s work gained prominence in 2009 when a dangerous security hole in Google Chrome Frame was found and fixed but it’s not very well known that the team has spent the last year disclosing hundreds of security defects in third-party software.

Since July 2010, Microsoft said the MSVR team identified and responsibly disclosed 109 different software vulnerabilities affecting a total of 38 vendors.

More than 93 percent of the third-party vulnerabilities found through MSVR since July 2010 were rated as Critical or Important, the company explained.

“Vendors have responded and have coordinated on 97 percent of all reported vulnerabilities; 29 percent of third-party vulnerabilities found since July 2010 have already been resolved, and none of the vulnerabilities without updates have been observed in any attacks,” Microsoft said.

This week’s discoveries:

A vulnerability exists in the way Safari handles certain content types. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to cause Safari to execute script content and disclose potentially sensitive information. An attacker who successfully exploited this vulnerability would gain sensitive information that could be used in further attacks.
A vulnerability exists in the way that WordPress previously implemented protection against cross site scripting and content-type validation. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to achieve script execution.

Mobile device management

Managing mobile devices entails a level of complexity unheard of in the traditional enterprise world of Windows desktops. MDM software needs to control devices from multiple manufacturers, running different versions of as many as five operating systems, tied to carrier networks with their own particular constraints.

This makes mobile device management a tough battle, but one that IT execs need to take on because mobile device users can lose important company data, potentially increase personal and organizational liability, and compromise systems security at levels that will frighten even the most jaded of IT administrators.

We set up a comprehensive test that included eight mobile devices, four operating systems, two service providers and five mobile management vendors (see How We Did It).

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New book: I. M. Wright’s “Hard Code”: A Decade of Hard-Won Lessons from Microsoft, Second Edition

We’re very happen to announce that the second, newly expanded edition of I. M. Wright’s “Hard Code”: A Decade of Hard-Won Lessons from Microsoft, by Eric Brechner is available for purchase. (Print ISBN 9780735661707; Page Count 448).

Here is an excerpt from Chapter 5, “Software Quality—More Than a Dream”.

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Chapter 5
Software Quality—More Than a Dream

image

Some people mock software development, saying if buildings were built like
software, the first woodpecker would destroy civilization. That’s quite funny, or
disturbing, but regardless it’s misguided. Early buildings lacked foundations. Early
cars broke down incessantly. Early TVs required constant fiddling to work properly.
Software is no different.


At first, Microsoft wrote software for early adopters, people comfortable replacing
PC boards. Back then, time to market won over quality, because early adopters
could work around issues, but they couldn’t slow the clock. Shipping fastest meant
coding quickly and then fixing just enough to make it work.


Now our market is consumers and the enterprise, who value quality over the
hassles of experimentation. The market change was gradual, so Microsoft’s initial
response was simply to fix more bugs. Soon bug fixing was taking longer than
coding, an incredibly slow process. The fastest way to ship high quality is to trap
errors early, coding it right the first time and minimizing rework. Microsoft has
been shifting to this quality upstream approach over the time I’ve been writing
these columns. The first major jolt that drove the company-wide change was a
series of Internet virus attacks in late 2001.


In this chapter, I. M. Wright preaches quality to the engineering masses. The first
column evaluates security issues. The second analyzes why quality is essential and
how you get it. The third column explains an engineering approach to software that
dramatically reduces defects. The fourth talks about design and code inspections.
The fifth describes metrics that can predict quality issues before customers experience them.
The sixth focuses on techniques to make software resilient. And
the chapter aptly finishes by emphasizing the five basics of software quality.
While all these columns provide an interesting perspective, the second one,
“Where’s the beef? Why we need quality” stands out as an important turning point.
When I wrote it few inside or outside Microsoft believed we were serious about
quality. Years later, many of the concepts are taken for granted. It took far more
than an opinion piece to drive that change, but it’s nice to call for action and have
people respond.
May 1, 2008: “Crash dummies: Resilience”

imageI heard a remark the other day that seemed stupid on the surface,
but when I really thought about it I realized it was completely idiotic
and irresponsible. The remark was that it’s better to crash and let
Watson report the error than it is to catch the exception and try to
correct it.



image

From a technical perspective, there is some sense to the strategy of allowing the crash to
complete and get reported. It’s like the logic behind asserts—the moment you realize you
are in a bad state, capture that state and abort. That way, when you are debugging later
you’ll be as close as possible to the cause of the problem. If you don’t abort immediately, it’s
often impossible to reconstruct the state and identify what went wrong. That’s why asserts
are good, right? So, crashing is sensible, right?

image

Oh please. Asserts and crashing are so 1990s. If you’re still thinking that way, you need to
shut off your Walkman and join the twenty-first century, unless you write software just for
yourself and your old-school buddies. These days, software isn’t expected to run only until its
programmer got tired. It’s expected to run and keep running. Period.


Struggle against reality


Hold on, an old-school developer, I’ll call him Axl Rose, wants to inject “reality” into the
discussion. “Look,” says Axl, “you can’t just wish bad machine states away, and you can’t fix
every bug no matter how late you party.” You’re right, Axl. While we need to design, test,
and code our products and services to be as error free as possible, there will always be bugs.
What we in the new century have realized is that for many issues it’s not the bugs that are
the problem—it’s how we respond to those bugs that matters.


Axl Rose responds to bugs by capturing data about them in hopes of identifying the cause.
Enlightened engineers respond to bugs by expecting them, logging them, and making their
software resilient to failure. Sure, we still want to fix the bugs we log because failures are
costly to performance and impact the customer experience. However, cars, TVs, and networking
fail all the time. They are just designed to be resilient to those failures so that crashes
are rare.

image
Perhaps be less assertive


“But asserts are still good, right? Everyone says so,” says Axl. No. Asserts as they are implemented
today are evil. They are evil. I mean it, evil. They cause programs to be fragile instead
of resilient. They perpetuate the mindset that you respond to failure by giving up instead of
rolling back and starting over.


We need to change how asserts act. Instead of aborting, asserts should log problems and
then trigger a recovery. I repeat—keep the asserts, but change how they act. You still want
asserts to detect failures early. What’s even more important is how you respond to those failures, including the ones that slip through Free MCTS Training – MCTS Online Training .
If at first you don’t succeed

So, how do you respond appropriately to failure? Well, how do you? I mean, in real life, how
do you respond to failure? Do you give up and walk away? I doubt you made it through the
Microsoft interview process if that was your attitude.


When you experience failure, you start over and try again. Ideally, you take notes about what
went wrong and analyze them to improve, but usually that comes later. In the moment, you
simply dust yourself off and give it another go.


For web services, the approach is called the five Rs—retry, restart, reboot, reimage, and
replace. Let’s break them down:
■ Retry First off, you try the failed action again. Often something just goofed the first
time and will work the second time.
■ Restart If retrying doesn’t work, restarting often does. For services, this often means
rolling back and restarting a transaction or unloading a DLL, reloading it, and performing
the action again the way Internet Information Server (IIS) does.
■ Reboot If restarting doesn’t work, do what a user would do, and reboot the machine.
■ Reimage If rebooting doesn’t work, do what support would do, and reimage the
application or entire box.
■ Replace If reimaging doesn’t do the trick, it’s time to get a new device.
Welcome to the jungle



Much of our software doesn’t run as a service in a datacenter, and contrary to what Google
might have you believe, customers don’t want all software to depend on a service. For client
software, the five Rs might seem irrelevant to you. Ah, to be so naïve and dismissive.


The five Rs apply just as well to client and application software on a PC or a phone. The key
most engineers miss is defining the action, the scope of what gets retried or restarted.
On the web it’s easier to identify—the action is usually a transaction to a database or a GET
or POST to a page. For client and application software, you need to think more about what
action the user or subsystem is attempting.


Well-designed software will have custom error handling at the end of each action, just like
I talked about in my column “A tragedy of error handling” (which appears in Chapter 6).
Having custom error handling after actions makes applying the five Rs much simpler.
Unfortunately, lots of throwback engineers, like Axl Rose, use a Routine for Error Central
Handling (RECH) instead, as I described in the same column. If your code looks like Axl’s,
you’ve got some work to do to separate out the actions, but it’s worth it if a few actions harbor
most crashes and you aren’t able to fix the root cause.


Just like starting over


Let’s check out some examples of applying the five Rs to client and application software:
■ Retry PCs and devices are a bit more predictable than web services, so failed operations
will likely fail again. However, retrying works for issues that fail sporadically, like
network connectivity or data contention. So, when saving a file, rather than blocking
for what seems like an eternity and then failing, try blocking for a short timeout and
then trying again—a better result for the same time or less. Doing so asynchronously
unblocks the user entirely and is even better, but it might be tricky.
■ Restart What can you restart at the client level? How about device drivers, database
connections, OLE objects, DLL loads, network connections, worker threads, dialogs, services,
and resource handles. Of course, blindly restarting the components you depend
upon is silly. You have to consider the kind of failure, and you need to restart the full
action to ensure that you don’t confuse state. Yes, it’s not trivial. What kills me is that as
a sophisticated user, restarting components is exactly what I do to fix half the problems
I encounter. Why can’t the code do the same? Why is the code so inept? Wait for it, the
answer will come to you.
■ Reboot If restarting components doesn’t work or isn’t possible because of a serious
failure, you need to restart the client or application itself—a reboot. Most of the
Office applications do this automatically now. They even recover most of their state as a
bonus. There are some phone and game applications that purposely freeze the screen
and reboot the application or device in order to recover (works only for fast reboots).
■ Reimage If rebooting the application doesn’t work, what does product support
tell you to do? Reinstall the software. Yes, this is an extreme measure, but these days
installs and repairs are entirely programmable for most applications, often at a component
level. You’ll likely need to involve the user and might even have to check online for
a fix. But if you’re expecting the user to do it, then you should do it.
■ Replace This is where we lose. If our software fails to correct the problem, the customer
has few choices left. These days, with competitors aching

System Center Orchestrator 2012 - what's changing?

OIS 6.3 is repackaged and given a facelift but remains fundamentally the same.

By Kerrie Meyler and Pete Zerger. Now that System Center Orchestrator 2012 is available in beta, you may be wondering if it is worthwhile to continue creating policies with Opalis Integration Server (OIS) 6.3. Will you have to rewrite all your OIS policies for the next release?

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This is a valid question, as Opalis Software's first release of OIS was not compatible with its previous OpalisRobot offering. However, Robot had a different code base than OIS. This is not the case going from OIS 6.3 to Orchestrator 2012, as the underlying engine is not changing, and Microsoft has announced that policies built in OIS (unless they use Legacy objects), along with their data, are usable in Orchestrator. Of course, some things ARE changing; here is a quick look:

New Operator Console. The OIS console is based on Java, requires numerous downloads, and has a fairly painful installation. With Orchestrator, Microsoft has rewritten the console in Silverlight, and it now ships with the core product and uses typical Microsoft installation technology.

New Web Service. The Java-based Opalis web service is replaced by an OData web service. Invoking runbooks through this web service doesn't seem to be documented yet.

Renaming. Here are some of the terminology changes with Orchestrator 2012:

Foundation objects become standard activities (and objects are now known as activities). These objects have updated, as have the icons for these objects.
Policies renamed to runbooks
Action server renamed to runbook server
Policy Testing Console becomes the Runbook Tester
Operator Console now the Orchestration Console

Changes in Foundation objects (now Standard activities).

Workflow Control category now called Runbook Control
Custom Start now Invoke Data
Publish Policy Data now Return Data
Trigger Policy now Invoke Runbooks
Notification Category - Send Page activity gone
System Category - Purge Event Log activity gone

WSDL gone. System Center Orchestrator 2012 uses a ReST-based Web Service so there is no WSDL. The web service supports OData, enabling easy management of the runtime environment.

Security. Updated cryptography and security model based on Microsoft best practices, allowing for centralized security management.

Operating environment for system components. Orchestrator must be installed on Windows 2008 R2 (SP1 is supported), and requires Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 for its database engine

No Oracle backend support. This should not be much of a surprise, given that Microsoft does not have a history of using Oracle for a database engine. System Center Opalis Integration Server 6.3 Unleashed warns that this was not anticipated to be a supported platform in the next release. And from what we've heard, the people who had to support it are happy it's gone!

Although there is no longer support for Legacy objects - and their use was not recommended even in OIS 6.3 - the engine is still 32-bit and has not been re-architected. Other than some terminology changes, improved installation experience, and new consoles, the product remains fundamentally the same. This means that your policies will continue to work after you export them out of the Opalis environment and into the Orchestrator environment (presuming there are no legacy objects in the policies).

At the moment, Operations Manager 2012 and Orchestrator SCO 2012 work together, although most of the System Center 2012 beta products do not, and will not until MS produces updated IPs for them.

Figure 1 shows the new Orchestrator console, Figure 2 displays the .Net Orchestration Console and Web Service in IIS Manager.

Inspector Gadgets: Windows 7 Gadgets for Monitoring Your PC

It's been nearly two years since Windows 7 was released, and yet there are still some features that Windows 7 users may not be taking full advantage of -- such as desktop gadgets. Similar to the Mac's Dashboard Widgets, Windows desktop gadgets are mini-applications that reside on your desktop and can display live data, perform simple functions like search or password generation, or give you a sneak peek inside the inner workings of your PC.

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Brand-specific gadgets

While the focus of this story is on gadgets that everyone can use to get some insight into how their system is working, I've also included two great gadgets that require specific hardware or software to work: the gadget that's included with Symantec's (SYMC) Norton Internet Security software and the Intel Core Series gadget for looking at certain Intel (INTC) processors.

Norton Internet Security gadget

Symantec's Norton gadget is among the most colorful. When the software is up to date and Internet bad guys are kept at bay, there's a prominent green banner across the top of the gadget that says "Secure." You'll immediately know that something is amiss if, for instance, your version of the software is out of date, because the banner turns red and says "At Risk."

Below the banner are icons that lead to the four major elements of the security suite. You can see details about the system's current security status, discover what other members of your family have been doing online (the software keeps tabs on other computers on your network that share your Norton Internet Security license), check if your backups are up to date and find out if a website is safe before clicking to it.

There's no download link for the Norton gadget: The only way to get it is to buy Norton Internet Security (regularly $70; now on sale for $50).

Intel Core Series

By contrast, the Core Series gadget is available online and can tell you a lot about your system's processor -- but only if it's a recent Intel CPU.

The gadget wasn't written by Intel, but it does a great job of interrogating Intel processors. (AMD (AMD) has a similar system monitoring program, but it's a full Windows 7 application, not a gadget.)

Like System Control A1, the Core Series gadget monitors up to eight processing threads (rather than cores, as it says), but it's valuable information nonetheless. It adds a handy overall CPU Usage rating and a graph below. If you add the WinRing0 software, which Core Series can download for you, the gadget can display the chip's actual clock speed as well.

You can choose a color scheme for the gadget and tell it what to include in the graph along the bottom: individual threads, all the operating threads, core temperature, or temperature and threads together. You can't resize it, though, which is a problem because the graph is rather crowded.

Exam 70-620: Configuring Vista Client

My exam was taken this morning - I was seriously unimpressed with the 70-620. It covers configuring Vista - or at least the new features, UAC, the Wireless connectivity, presentation settings etc etc.

If this is your very first Microsoft exam then its an easy introduction - if you have any significant history with Microsoft exams you will find it very easy - too easy.

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The questions are about which menu option do you choose or which button do you click. Very little, if any, understanding of the underlying concepts is required to pass this exam.

I thought the NT exams were fairly easy. Things started to get more challenging with the Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 exams. This is a complete reversal.

I hope this isn't setting the standard for exams to come in the Windows 2008 wave of products.

Default Groups

Windows Server 2003 has four categories of default groups: groups in the Builtin folder, groups in the Users folder, special identity groups, and default local groups. All of the default groups are security groups and have been assigned common sets of rights and permissions that you might want to assign to the users and groups that you place into the default groups.

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Groups in the Builtin Folder

Windows Server 2003 creates default security groups with a domain local scope in the Builtin folder in the Active Directory Users And Computers console. The groups in the Builtin folder are primarily used to assign default sets of permissions to users who have administrative responsibilities in the domain. Table 8-2 describes the default groups in the Builtin folder.

This group exists only on domain controllers. By default, the group has no members. By default, members can create, modify, and delete accounts for users, groups, and computers in all containers and OUs of Active Directory except the Builtin folder and the Domain Controllers OU. Members do not have permission to modify the Administrators and Domain Admins groups, nor do they have permission to modify the accounts for members of those groups.

Members have complete and unrestricted access to the computer or domain controller, including the right to change their own permissions. If the Administrator account resides on the first domain controller con-figured for the domain, the Administrator account is automatically added to the Domain Admins group and complete access to the domain is granted.

By default, this group has no members. Members can back up and restore all files on a computer, regardless of the permissions that pro¬tect those files. Members can also log on to the computer and shut it down.

Members have the same privileges as members of the Users group. Members can create incoming, one-way trusts to this forest.

Members have the same default rights as members of the Users group. Members can perform all tasks related to the client side of network configuration except for installing and removing drivers and services. Members cannot configure network server services such as the Domain Name System (DNS) and Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server services.

Members have remote access to schedule logging of performance counters on this computer.

Members have remote access to monitor this computer.

Members have read access on all users and groups in the domain. This group is provided for backward compatibility for computers running Microsoft Windows NT 4 and earlier.

This group exists only on domain controllers. Members can manage printers and document queues.

Members can log on to a computer from a remote location.

This group supports directory replication functions and is used by the file replication service on domain controllers. By default, the group has no members. The only member should be a domain user account used to log on to the Replicator services of the domain controller. Do not add users to this group.

This group exists only on domain controllers. By default, the group has no members. Members can log on to a server interactively, create and delete network shares, start and stop services, back up and restore files, format the hard disk of the computer, and shut clown the computer.

Terminal Server License Servers

Members are prevented from making accidental or intentional system-wide changes. Members can run certified applications, use printers, shut down and start the computer, and use network shares for which they are assigned permissions. Members cannot share folders or install printers on the local computer. By default, the Domain Users group is a member.

Members have access to the computed tokenGroupsGlobalAndUniversal attribute on User objects.

Off the Record If you need to create a list of groups, you can use the Net Localgroup and Net Group commands. For example, you could open a command prompt and type net localgroup > C:\localgroups.txt to create a list of local groups in a file named C:\localgroups.txt. As another example of how the Net commands work, examine and run the batch file named Grouplistings.bat on the Supplemental CD-ROM in the \70-294\ Labs\Chapter08 folder.

Taking the 70-620 TS: Windows Vista, Configuring Exam

If you go for the MCSE or MCITP Enterprise, you will have to take an exam covering a client operating system. One exam, you can take the 70-620: Configuring Microsoft Windows Vista.
The objectives are broken down to the following main groups:

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* Installing and Upgrading Windows Vista
* Configuring and Troubleshooting Post-Installation System Settings
* Configuring Windows Security Features
* Configuring Network Connectivity
* Configuring Applications Included with Windows Vista
* Maintaining and Optimizing Systems That Run Windows Vista
* Configuring and Troubleshooting Mobile Computing

As with an operating system, you should first start with how to install Windows Vista. Besides running the normal installation DVD, you also need to be familiar with how to install Windows Vista with answer files, Windows images, ImageX, and Sysprep. You will then need to know how to upgrade from older versions of Windows to Windows Vista and from one version of Windows Vista to another version of Windows Vista. You will also need to know how to migrate data files and settings from one computer running Windows to a new computer running Windows Vista using Windows Easy Transfer (WET) and User State Migration Tool V3.0.

One of the new enhancements to the Windows Interface is Windows Aero. Therefore, you need to know the requirements for Aero to work including the color depth, the refresh rate, theme, color scheme and frame transparency.

With Windows Vista, Microsoft has enhanced some tools while introducing entirely new set of tools. For the exam, you will need to know accessibility tools and parental control. Of course, since the wide adoption of IPv6 is right around the corner, you will need to know how to configure IPv4 and IPv6. In addition, since wireless technology has become commonplace, you will need to know how to setup wireless connections.

Over the last few years, there has been a big push for security with Microsoft operating system and applications. As with any modern Windows operating system, you will need to know how to configure file system security. This will be done with NTFS permissions, Share permissions, EFS and BitLocker. BitLocker is a new technology that can encrypt an entire drive, which will protect if a computer such as a laptop is stolen. Be sure to know when it is best to use EFS for encryption and when it is best to use BitLocker. Also know the system requirements for BitLocker.

If you have used Windows Vista, you have seen and experienced User Account Control (UAC). So you will need to know how User Account Control protects your computer and you will need to know how to react to User Account Control prompts and if necessary, you will need to know how to disable UAC. Other tools that help protect your computer are Windows Defender and Windows Firewall. Therefore, you will need to know how to configure those tools.

Besides the new updated interface, Windows Vista also included Internet Explorer (IE) 7.0. Therefore, you will need to know how to configure IE. In addition, you will need to know how to configure Windows Media Player and Media Player Center including understanding regions and Codecs.

As a user, you will need to use standard applications include Wordpad, Notepad, Mail, Calendar, Fax and Scan and Meeting Space. You also need to now how to configure Windows Sidebar and its gadgets.

Lastly, you need to know the tools that are made for mobile computers. That would be including configuring Power management (power plans and hibernate, hybrid and sleep mode), Sync center, offline folders and Windows SideShow. Lastly, you need to be familiar with how to configure Tablet PCs and how to configure Flicks.

If you want to prepare for this exam, I would highly recommend the Exam Cram book 70-620 TS: Windows Vista, Configuring by Patrick Regan (Que Publishing), which will cover each of these topics and give you plenty of practice questions.

70-680 Exam Questions&Answers-Part 2

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Exam : Microsoft 70-680

Title : TS: Windows 7, Configuring

13. You have a computer named Computer1 that runs Windows Vista and a computer named Computer2 that runs Windows 7.

You plan to migrate all profiles and user files from Computer1 to Computer2.

You need to identify how much space is required to complete the migration.

What should you do?

A. On Computer1 run Loadstate c:\store /nocompress

B. On Computer1 run Scanstate c:\store /nocompress /p

C. On Computer2 run Loadstate \\computer1\store /nocompress

D. On Computer2 run Scanstate \\computer1\store /nocompress /p

Answer: B



14. You have a computer that runs Windows Vista. The computer contains a custom application.

You need to export the user state and the settings of the custom application.

What should you do?

A. Run Loadstate.exe and specify the /config parameter.

B. Run Scanstate.exe and specify the /genconfig parameter.

C. Modify the miguser.xml file. Run Loadstate.exe and specify the /ui parameter.

D. Modify the migapp.xml file. Run Scanstate.exe and specify the /i parameter.

Answer: D



15. You have a reference computer that runs Windows 7.

You plan to deploy an image of the computer.

You create an answer file named answer.xml.

You need to ensure that the installation applies the answer file after you deploy the image.

Which command should you run before you capture the image?

A. Imagex.exe /append answer.xml /check

B. Imagex.exe /mount answer.xml /verify

C. Sysprep.exe /reboot /audit /unattend:answer.xml

D. Sysprep.exe /generalize /oobe /unattend:answer.xml

Answer: D



16. You plan to deploy Windows 7 to 100 computers on your corporate network.

You install Windows 7 on a computer.

You and need to prepare the computer to be imaged.

What should you do before you create the image of the computer?

A. At the command prompt, run the Dism command.

B. At the command prompt, run the Sysprep command.

C. Start the computer from the Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) and then run the Imagex command.

D. Start the computer from the Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) and then run the Wpeutil command.

Answer: B



17. You have a computer that runs Windows 7.

You need to configure the computer to meet the following requirements:

Generate a new security ID (SID) when the computer starts.

Ensure that the Welcome screen appears when the computer starts.

What should you do?

A. Run Sysprep.exe /oobe /generalize.

B. Run Sysprep.exe /audit /generalize.

C. Run Msconfig.exe and select Selective startup.

D. Run Msconfig.exe and select Diagnostic startup.

Answer: A



18. You have a reference computer that runs Windows 7.

You plan to create an image of the computer and then deploy the image to 100 computers.

You need to prepare the reference computer for imaging.

What should you do before you create the image?

A. Run Package Manager.

B. Run the System Preparation tool.

C. Install the User State Migration Tool.

D. Install Windows Automated Installation Kit.

Answer: B



19. You start a computer by using Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE).

You need to dynamically load a network adapter device driver in Windows PE.

What should you do?

A. Run Peimg.exe and specify the device driver path.

B. Run Drvload.exe and specify the device driver path.

C. Run Winpeshl.exe and specify a custom Winpeshl.ini file.

D. Run Wpeutil.exe and specify the InitializeNetwork command.

Answer: B



20. You plan to install Windows 7 by using a Windows 7 DVD.

You need to perform an automated installation of Windows 7.

What should you do?

A. Create an answer file named oobe.xml. Copy the file to a network share.

B. Create an answer file named winnt.sif. Place the file on a removable drive.

C. Create an answer file named sysprep.inf. Copy the file to a network share.

D. Create an answer file named autounattend.xml. Place the file on a removable drive.

Answer: D



21. You have a Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) and a computer that runs Windows 7. The VHD has Windows 7 installed.

You need to start the computer from the VHD.

What should you do?

A. From Diskpart.exe, run Select vdisk.

B. From Disk Management, modify the active partition.

C. Run Bootcfg.exe and specify the /default parameter.

D. Run Bcdedit.exe and modify the Windows Boot Manager settings.

Answer: D



22. You have a new computer that does not have an operating system installed.

You have a virtual hard disk (VHD) that contains an installation of Windows 7.

You start the computer from the Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE). You create a partition on the computer and copy the VHD to the partition.

You need to configure the computer to start from the VHD.

Which tools should you use?

A. Diskpart.exe and Bcdboot.exe

B. Imagex.exe and Bcdedit.exe

C. Scanstate.exe and Loadstate.exe

D. Wpeutil.exe and Dism.exe

Answer: A



23. Your have a computer that runs Windows 7.

You need to confirm that all device drivers installed on the computer are digitally signed.

What should you do?

A. At a command prompt, run Verify.

B. At a command prompt, run Sigverif.exe.

C. From Device Manager, click Scan for hardware changes.

D. From Device Manager, select the Devices by connection view.

Answer: B



24. You have a computer that runs Windows 7.

Multiple users log on to the computer.

You need to deny one user access to removable devices on the computer. All other users must have access to the removable drives.

What should you do?

A. From the local Group Policy, modify an application control policy.

B. From Control Panel, modify the BitLocker Drive Encryption settings.

C. From Device Manager, modify the settings of all removable devices.

D. From the local Group Policy, modify a removable storage access policy.

Answer: D



25. You have a computer that runs Windows 7.

You need to modify the file extensions that are associated to Internet Explorer.

What should you do?

A. From Internet Explorer, click Tools and then click Manage Add-ons.

B. From Control Panel, open Default Programs and then click Set Associations.

C. From the local Group Policy, expand Computer Configuration and then click Software Settings.

D. From Window Explorer, right-click %programfiles%\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe and then click Properties.

Answer: B



26. Your network contains 100 computers that run Windows XP.

You need to identify which applications installed on all of the computers can run on Windows 7.

You must achieve this goal by using the minimum amount of administrative effort.

What should you install?

A. Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT)

B. Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit

C. Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT)

D. Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK)

Answer: A



27. You have a stand-alone computer named Computer1 that runs Windows 7. Several users share Computer1.

You need to prevent all users who are members of a group named Group1 from running Windows Media Player. All other users must be allowed to run Windows Media Player. You must achieve this goal by using the least amount of administrative effort.

What should you do?

A. From Software Restriction Policies, create a path rule.

B. From Software Restriction Policies, create a hash rule.

C. From Application Control Policies, create the default rules.

D. From Application Control Policies, create an executable rule.

Answer: D



28. You have a computer that runs Windows 7.

Your company has three custom applications named app1.exe, app2.exe, and app3.exe. The applications have been digitally signed by the company.

You need to create a policy that allows only applications that have been digitally-signed by the company to run.

What should you create?

A. an AppLocker executable rule

B. an AppLocker Windows Installer rule

C. a software restriction policy and a certificate rule

D. a software restriction policy and a hash rule

Answer: A

29. You have a computer that runs Windows 7.

You need to prevent Internet Explorer from saving any data during a browsing session.

What should you do?

A. Disable the BranchCache service.

B. Modify the InPrivate Blocking list.

C. Open an InPrivate Browsing session.

D. Modify the security settings for the Internet zone.

Answer: C



30. Your company has an Active Directory domain. All computers are members of the domain.

Your network contains an internal Web site that uses Integrated Windows Authentication.

From a computer that runs Windows 7, you attempt to connect to the Web site and are prompted for authentication.

You verify that your user account has permission to access the Web site.

You need to ensure that you are automatically authenticated when you connect to the Web site.

What should you do?

A. Create a complex password for your user account.

B. Open Credential Manager and modify your credentials.

C. Add the URL of the Web site to the Trusted sites zone.

D. Add the URL of the Web site to the Local intranet zone.

Answer: D

31. Your network consists of a single IPv4 subnet. The subnet contains 20 computers that run Windows 7.

You add a new computer named Computer1 to the subnet.

You discover that Computer1 has an IP address of 169.254.34.12.

You cannot connect to other computers on the network. Other computers on the network can connect to each other.

You need to ensure that you can connect to all computers on the network.

What should you do?

A. Turn off Windows Firewall.

B. Run Ipconfig.exe /renew.

C. Configure a static TCP/IP address.

D. Run Netsh.exe interface ipv4 install.

Answer: C



32. You have a computer that runs Windows 7.

The IPv6 address of the computer is configured automatically.

You need to identify the IPV6 address of the computer.

What should you do?

A. At the command prompt, run Netstat.

B. At the command prompt run Net config.

C. From the network connection status, click Details.

D. From network connection properties, select Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6) and click Properties.

Answer: C



33. Your network consists of an Active Directory domain named contoso.com. You have a computer named computer1.contoso.com.

Your network is configured to use only IPv6.

You need to request that a DNS record be created to enable users to connect to your computer by using the name dev.contoso.com.

Which type of record should you request?

A. A

B. AAAA

C. HINFO

D. NAPTR

Answer: B



34. Your network contains a wireless access point. You have a computer that runs Windows 7. The computer connects to the wireless access point.

You disable Service Set Identifier (SSID) broadcasts on the wireless access point.

You discover that you are now unable to connect to the wireless access point from the Windows 7 computer.

You need to ensure that the computer can connect to the wireless access point.

What should you do?

A. From Credential Manager, modify the generic credentials.

B. From Credential Manager, modify the Windows credentials.

C. From Network and Sharing Center, turn on Network discovery.

D. From Network and Sharing Center, modify the wireless network connection setting.

Answer: D



35. You have a wireless access point that is configured to use Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) security. A pre-shared key is not configured on the wireless access point.

You need to connect a computer that runs Windows 7 to the wireless access point.

Which security setting should you select for the wireless connection?

A. 802.1x

B. WPA-Personal

C. WPA2-Enterprise

D. WPA2-Personal

Answer: C



36. You have a computer named Computer1 that runs Windows 7.

You need to ensure that Computer1 can connect to File Transfer Protocol (FTP) servers only while it is connected to a private network.

What should you do?

A. From Windows Firewall with Advanced Security, create a new rule.

B. From the local Group Policy, modify the application control policies.

C. From Windows Firewall, modify the Allowed Programs and Features list.

D. From Network and Sharing Center, modify the Advanced Sharing settings.

Answer: A

Some Requirements For MCITP Certification

Before you take one exam, you should know what kind of questions it will be, which part of the knowledge of this exam that you should pay more attention to. In a word, you should know the requirements of the exam. So, today, I will tell you some requirements for MCITP Certification, just to those who still have no idea of what MCITP Certification requires.

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MCITP certification validates the comprehensive skills that are necessary for performing a particular job specialization role which includes enterprise messaging administration or database administration. MCITP certification also builds up technical proficient that are measured in the Microsoft certification informational technology professional. Hence, candidate can obtain more MCITP certifications to earn credentials in this certifications.

Successful candidates who are holding their MCITP certification will be capable of designing, deploying, building, optimizing as well as operating technologies of a particular specialized job role. Successful candidates will also design and make decisions regarding the technology in an effective way to bring successful technology implementation of projects.

MCITP Certification Examination:

In order to obtain the this certificate, candidate has to take up the examination and score a minimum scaled points. The following are the examinations for the MCITP certification.

Windows client:

1) 70-680 or enterprise desktop administration 7
2) 70-686 or enterprise desktop administration 7
3) 70-620 or consumer support technician
4) 70-623 or consumer support technician
5) 70-620 or enterprise support technician
6) 70-622 or enterprise support technician

Windows server:

1) 70-640 MCITP or enterprise administration
2) 70-642
3) 70-643
4) 70-624 or exam 70-620 and exam 70-647
5) 70-640 MCITP or server administrator
6) 70-642
7) 70-646

Microsoft Office Project Server:

1) 70-632 or enterprise project management with MS office server 2007
2) 70-633
3) 70-634

Microsoft exchange server:

1) 70-236 or enterprise messaging administration
2) 70-237
3) 238

All these above examinations are required to take part by the candidates to obtain the certification and they can be taken part in any order.

The Real MCTS/MCITP Exam 70-620 Prep Kit

This exam is designed to validate proficieny supporting Windows Vista client. This IT Exams will fulfill the Windows Vista Technology Specialist requirements of 70-620 Exam.

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The Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS) on Windows Vista credential is intended for information technology (IT) professionals who work in the complex computing environment of medium to large companies. The MCTS candidate should have at least one year of experience in Tier 1 or Tier 2 phone support in an upper midsize organization or enterprise environment.
MCTS candidates should have experience resolving issues concerning network connectivity, desktop operating systems, security, and applications. Their experience should also include addressing logon problems, performing password resets, and resolving most issues with desktop applications.

* Designed to help study for and pass this important MCTS exam on the Vista operating system on the way to MCITP status
* Targeted to newcomers to Microsoft certification AND people who wish to upgrade their Windows 2003 MCSE/MCSA
* THE independent source of exam day tips, techniques, and warnings not available from Microsoft
* Comprehensive study guide guarantees 100% coverage of all Microsoft's exam objectives
* Interactive FastTrack e-learning modules help simplify difficult exam topics
* Two full-function ExamDay practice exams guarantee double coverage of all exam objectives
* Free download of audio FastTracks for use with iPods or other MP3 players

70-620, the required exam for the new Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (MCTS): Windows Vista Client certification. There are 2-in-1 kit includes the official Microsoft?? study guide, plus practice tests on CD to help you assess your skills. It comes packed with the tools and features that exam candidates want most--including in-depth, self-paced training based on final exam content; rigorous, objective-by-objective review; free certification exam questions, exam-certified authors; and customizable testing options. It also provides real-world scenarios, case study examples, and troubleshooting labs for skills and expertise that you can apply to the job.

Microsoft's Kinect SDK, Patch Tuesday, Phone Scam Pushback Marked Week

Microsoft's week involved a giant Patch Tuesday, the release of Kinect for Windows SDK beta and alerts about a phone scam.

Microsoft’s relatively quiet week saw a significant Patch Tuesday and a new phase of life for its popular Kinect hands-free game controller.

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June’s Patch Tuesday tackled some 24 bugs across 16 bulletins. It wasn’t quite as big as April’s session, but certainly covered a lot of ground: in addition to patching Windows, bulletins targeted vulnerabilities in all supported versions of Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office, SQL Server, Forefront, .NET/Silverlight, Active Directory and Hyper-V.

Microsoft rated nine of those patches as “critical” and seven as “important.” In a June 14 posting on the Microsoft Security Response Center blog, the company cited four of those critical updates as particularly important: MS11-042, targeting two issues in the DFS client for all versions of Windows; MS11-050, a patch for 11 bugs in all versions of Internet Explorer; MS11-052, aimed at another Windows operating system issue; and MS11-043, meant to repair the SMB Client on Windows.

Security IT administrators should pay particular attention to fixing the Internet Explorer issues, according to Joshua Talbot, security intelligence manager for Symantec Security Response. “The slew of Internet Explorer vulnerabilities presents a significant attack surface for cyber-criminals to poke at,” he said, citing how a similar IE flaw was used in “at least one” of the recent, well-publicized data breaches.

Microsoft’s Patch Tuesday also targeted the “cookie-jacking” vulnerability in HTML5 (MS11-037), which could allow a malicious Website to swipe cookies from users. Despite the availability of proof-of-concept code, the apparent inability for direct code execution makes this particular patch “important” as opposed to “critical.”

Microsoft is also aiming to fix a denial-of-service vulnerability in Hyper-V (MS11-047) on Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2, which could let an attacker on a guest virtual machine execute a resource exhaustion denial-of-service on the host and affect other virtual machines.

When it came to code, though, this week wasn’t all about patching vulnerabilities: Microsoft also released its Kinect for Windows SDK beta, bringing the motion-control and voice-recognition technology to developers and researchers.

Microsoft had originally designed the Kinect controller, which was released in November 2010, as a way to play Xbox 360 games via gesture and the spoken word—hoping to appeal, in the process, to the same sort of casual gamers who had made the Nintendo Wii and its unconventional controllers such a massive hit.

Kinect turned out to be a massive hit, too, selling some 10 million units worldwide by March.

However, tech pros soon found a way to hack the Kinect’s 3D camera, which translates the movements of a user’s body to a digital avatar. Videos soon began to appear on YouTube, demonstrating the next-generation hardware at work controlling robots or allowing people to paint 3D images in mid-air.

At first, Microsoft publicly disapproved. Just as quickly, however, the company decided to pull an about-face and claim it had always intended Kinect to be open to modification.

Now the SDK beta’s arrived. Its system requirements include a Kinect for Xbox 360 sensor; a computer with a dual-core, 2.66-GHz (or faster) processor; a Windows 7-compatible graphics card with support for DirectX 9.0c capabilities, and 2GB of RAM.

Required software includes Windows 7, Visual Studio 2010 Express (or other 2010 edition), and Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0.

Microsoft itself intends to incorporate advances in 3D sensing for products beyond gaming. In late 2010, the company acquired Canesta, a maker of 3D-image sensor chips and camera modules that can be embedded in a variety of consumer products, including laptops and vehicle dashboards.

In totally unrelated news, Microsoft also issued a warning this week against fake tech-support and phone scams.

“The callers pretend to be from Microsoft and try to sell the victim something, direct them to a specific Website, asked for remote access, to install software, a credit card number, or run a bogus security scan that showed an infection,” Eric Foster, group manager for Microsoft Windows Marketing, wrote in a June 16 posting on The Windows Blog.

The scam seems to be taking place in English-speaking countries. A survey by Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing Team found that, out of 7,000 people surveyed, some 1,000 had received calls—with 22 percent falling for the scam.

Foster’s blog post offered a series of tips for avoiding phone scams. “We want to remind you will never receive a legitimate call from Microsoft or our partners to charge you for computer fixes,” he wrote. “Please remember to question any unsolicited email or call.”

4 reasons Windows Phone 7 will beat iPhone and Android

And three reasons it won't

Microsoft has a relatively long history with mobile operating systems, stretching back to the mid-1990s and Windows CE. Developed originally for "embedded systems," Windows CE quickly found its way into PDAs and eventually phones, and while consumers never warmed to the platform, it did achieve a level of success in the enterprise.

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Most popular Windows Phone 7 apps

Watch a slideshow version of this story.

Microsoft doesn't tend to invest time and capital into market segments it can't dominate, which makes one wonder how it is still a distant fifth in the worldwide smartphone market. According to IDC, Windows Phone 7/Windows Mobile will capture roughly 4% of the worldwide smartphone market by the end of 2011.

However, IDC predicts that once the next version of Windows Phone 7 arrives in products later this year, Microsoft will be on firmer footing. In fact, IDC is so bullish on the future of Windows smartphones that it predicts Microsoft will capture more than 20% of the market by 2015, moving ahead of iOS and behind only Android.

Here are four reasons why Microsoft will be a major smartphone player in a few years.

And three reasons it won't.

1. Will: Strong partners and deep pockets

Ever since Microsoft announced its partnership with Nokia back in February, tech pundits have been buzzing about a possible acquisition. A bad earnings forecast for the second quarter of 2011 released by Nokia in early June added fuel to the fire.

Thus far, none of the rumors have amounted to anything more than talk. What shouldn't be overlooked, however, is that this partnership alone is a big deal.

"The partnership with Nokia is a stroke of genius," says Brian Reed, vice president of products for BoxTone, a provider of mobile device management services. "Nokia is fighting for its life. The company needs Microsoft, and Microsoft needs a strong mobile partner who can deliver compelling hardware."

Don't forget that, despite Nokia's recent troubles, it still has the largest installed phone base and an overall strong brand.

"One major advantage Microsoft has is that by being largest software vendor in world, they can bring together more pieces of both corporate and consumer value chains than anyone else," Winthrop says.

Compared to Google, Microsoft has a much longer legacy of selling to consumers and enterprises. They have stronger relationships. They have a stronger sales channel, and even though they lag behind Apple, Android and even BlackBerry as far as apps are concerned, there are still plenty of Windows and Windows mobile developers out there. The gap could close quickly.

2. Will: Cloud computing and the advantage of openness

When Apple announced its iCloud cloud service, they drummed up a ton of coverage for something that would make any Windows or Google Apps user say, "So what?"

Google and Microsoft were both more aggressive than Apple about rolling out cloud services, but even if iCloud is Apple playing catch-up, services like iTunes Match and Book synching will make the iPhone even stickier. Looking at smartphones through the consumer prism, why would an iPhone user abandon the platform for Windows Phone (or Android for that matter)?

Critical fixes for Windows and IE coming in big Patch Tuesday

Microsoft to release 13 patches covering 22 vulnerabilities next week

In another big Patch Tuesday, Microsoft will release 13 patches next week covering 22 vulnerabilities, including two critical patches to prevent remote code execution attacks in Windows and Internet Explorer. Three other less critical patches will close holes that would allow denial-of-service attacks on Windows, and a majority of the 13 patches will require a restart.

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Microsoft Office, .NET and Visual Studio will also be patched.

The 13 patches is a large total but short of the 16 released in June, and short of the record 17. However, nine of the 16 June patches were rated as critical, whereas only two this month merit the most severe rating. The 22 vulnerabilities to be closed this month is just a fraction of the record 64 set in April 2011.

Microsoft patching: Still painful after all these years

Only four patches were issued last month, because Microsoft alternates between big and small releases to relieve the pressure on IT administrators.

Bulletin #1 on next week's list of 13 looks to be the most serious, as it is rated critical on Windows 7, Vista and XP, Windows Server 2003 and 2008 (including R2, the most recent release), and Internet Explorer versions 6 through 9. The patch requires a restart and is designed to prevent remote code execution.

Bulletin #2 will also require a restart and prevent remote code execution, but is rated critical only on Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008 R2. The patch is rated only as important on Windows Server 2003, slightly unusual because Microsoft says vulnerabilities are typically less serious in newer versions of its products. The desktop versions of Windows are not affected.

Overall, nine patches affect Windows, one affects Internet Explorer, one affects Office, and two each affect the .NET Framework and Microsoft Developer Tools. Four of the 13 patches involve preventing remote code execution, three elevation of privilege, three prevent denial-of-service attacks, and three prevent information disclosure.

In other news, Microsoft released an annual security report which incorrectly claimed that vulnerabilities allowing remote code execution - a critical problem - are declining. Microsoft has since updated the report, and it turns out remote code execution flaws are actually on the rise, and the total number of reported vulnerabilities is rising as well.

We'll be back with more on the Microsoft Subnet after the patches are released Tuesday. Microsoft will issue them around 1 p.m. Eastern Time.

Why IBM Is the Most Innovative Company in IT

A recent issue of Forbes ranks the most innovative companies in the world, but overlooks IBM. In this opinion piece, eWEEK’s Darryl K. Taft argues that Big Blue belongs atop that list.

Why IBM Is the Most Innovative Company in IT

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IBM is the most innovative company in IT, period.

The Aug. 8 issue of Forbes contains a list of what the well-heeled magazine sees as the “World’s Most Innovative Companies.” The print edition ranks 50 companies, and if you go online there are an additional 50 companies ranked. Yet, in that list of 100, Forbes did not see fit to include IBM. That is a slap in the face of Big Blue. That is a shame.

IBM has more innovation going on in its pinky than Forbes’ No. 1 ranked innovator, Salesforce.com, has in its whole body. Of course, Forbes has some fancy formula -- involving something they’re calling the “Innovation Premium” -- for calculating just who is innovative. And they have some big-time professors from some fancy schools to back up their thinking. What’s more is their list appears to have more to do with a company’s ability to provide a targeted return on investment than with pure innovation. I don’t care how they calculate it or who supports the methodology, to come up with a list of 100 “innovative” companies and not include IBM is a joke. And then to name Salesforce.com as No. 1 on a list that doesn’t include IBM is an insult.

It’s an insult because IBM, by the sake of its IBM Research arm alone, is more innovative than pretty much anybody else out there. IBM invests more than $6 billion annually on research and development and employs about 3,000 researchers worldwide. IBM’s $6 billion annual R&D spend is more than three times the annual sales at Salesforce.

IBM’s got an image of being stodgy and stiff – a company for old folks. This is unfortunate, because in the company of more than 400,000 people, there are gobs of young people, and 50 percent of its employees have been with IBM for five years or less. But I’ll grant it that the average age of attendees at IBM conferences is probably a bit older than what you’d see at Google I/O, Apple WWDC, Microsoft MIX or Adobe MAX.

However, IBM is 100 years old! That in itself indicates a culture of innovation; it shows resolve. IBM has had to constantly re-create itself to keep abreast of trends in the industry.

And then there are all those patents. In January, IBM announced that its inventors received a record 5,896 U.S. patents in 2010, marking the 18th consecutive year it has topped the list of the world’s most inventive companies. IBM became the first company to be granted as many as 5,000 U.S. patents in a single year.

IBM’s press release on the issue says IBM received patents for a range of inventions in 2010, such as a method for gathering, analyzing and processing patient information from multiple data sources to provide more effective diagnoses of medical conditions; a system for predicting traffic conditions based on information exchanged over short-range wireless communications; a technique that analyzes data from sensors in computer hard drives to enable faster emergency response in the event of earthquakes and other disasters; and a technology advancement for enabling computer chips to communicate using pulses of light instead of electrical signals, which can deliver increased performance of computing systems.

I know the number of patents is not necessarily the best measure of innovation. I also know that IBM’s aggressive pursuit of patents could be perceived as the company building a defense (or even compiling an offensive arsenal) in an increasingly litigious tech landscape. But here again, this shows foresight and strategy. And it indicates just how innovative IBM’s engineers and researchers are. As IBMer Bala Subramanian put it, the 5,896 patents in 2010 “works out to an invention every 1/2 hour of an 8 hour working day (5,896/365=16.15 not excluding any holidays or weekends).”

But, to be sure, patents can be used for good or other purposes. Perhaps that’s what prompted Google to recently acquire more than 1,000 patents from IBM. Google is No. 7 on Forbes’ list, by the way.

In this now-famous story told by prominent tech attorney Gary Reback (and broken in Forbes no less!), Reback talks of how when he was a lawyer for Sun Microsystems in the 1980s IBM came in and claimed Sun infringed seven of its patents. Sun stood up to the IBM team and provided evidence the company did not infringe all seven patents, but perhaps only one.


Then, according to Reback:

An awkward silence ensued. The blue suits did not even confer among themselves. They just sat there, stone-like. Finally, the chief suit responded. "OK," he said, "maybe you don't infringe these seven patents. But we have 10,000 U.S. patents. Do you really want us to go back to Armonk [IBM headquarters in New York] and find seven patents you do infringe? Or do you want to make this easy and just pay us $20 million?"

After a modest bit of negotiation, Sun cut IBM a check, and the blue suits went to the next company on their hit list.

Microsoft's Gamble: Metro UI as the New Face of Windows

The tile-based Metro user interface that runs on Windows Phones will soon be the look and feel of all devices in Microsoft's ecosystem. Is this smart streamlining or a foolish consistency?

At its Worldwide Partner Conference last week, Microsoft strongly implied that the Metro user interface that adorns its Windows Phones will become the standard design across the PC, phone and Xbox 360 when Windows 8 arrives.

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Microsoft did not formally announced this as such, but showed an image at WPC 2011 (below) that has the tile-friendly Metro design plastered on a laptop, a tablet, a smartphone and on an HD television via Xbox 360.

At WPC, CEO Steve Ballmer referred to the image above and alluded to Metro as the new face of Windows.

"We're moving in a great direction in terms of a common and coherent design language and user interface across phone, slate, PC and TV."

This was not surprising, as Microsoft has already displayed the Metro UI within Windows 8 at All Things Digital's D9 conference in late May. But it was almost startling to see the myriad Metro-based devices together in one image. Windows is soon going to look … different.

As for the Metro design itself, it grows on you. Aesthetically, the tile-based look is not going to win any awards, but it does organize lots of information simply and efficiently.

Nevertheless, it's still a bold move for the software giant in that Metro will be a different interface experience for traditional Windows PC users. In addition, even though Metro has been somewhat successful as a small-screen UI on Windows Phone 7, it has no history as a big-screen PC interface design. Users will be able to opt out of Metro and run a traditional desktop interface with Windows 8, but Metro on a PC will introduce confusion.

ZDNet blogger Adrian Kingsley-Hughes had these strong words for Metro in a blog post: "Shoving the same UI on devices that are used in different ways is either lazy or hubristic … and it disturbs me."

You could argue that Microsoft is fixing something that isn't broken. But although the Windows 7 PC experience is not broken, the rapidly approaching post-PC era will demand that the Windows experience be more fluid and flexible. And right now, Windows is fragmented.

Currently, Microsoft has: successful client OS Windows 7 running on traditional PCs and netbooks, a struggling Windows Phone with a completely different UI than Windows 7, and no tablets to speak of other than "Windows 7 tablets", which run about as smoothly as a broken-down lawnmower. So Microsoft will surely need streamlined branding and a consistent look and feel as Windows expands outside of the traditional PC.

Sure, it's a risk to trust an unproven small-screen UI as the one size that fits all. But as PC sales continue to dwindle, Windows needs to be seen as one OS that floats around every device. A common interface will help create that important perception.

What do you think of the Metro UI as the new face of Windows? Love it or hate it?

Creating advanced External Item Picker filter control using External Content Type - SharePoint 2010

In this walkthrough we will cover the following topics:
• Create WCF service in SharePoint 2010 using Visual Studio 2010
• Create an External Content Type with Filters to show in picker using SharePoint Designer 2010
• Add an External Item Picker Control Filter in an InfoPath Form Using InfoPath 2010
• Set up administrator-approved form template using Central Administration

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Prerequisites
• Server running Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010, you should have access to Central Administration, including the search service and the business data connectivity service.
• Microsoft SharePoint Designer 2010
• InfoPath Designer 2010
• Microsoft .NET Framework 4.0 installed
• Visual Studio 2010
• CKSDEV Templates for Visual Studio (Recommended)

To create External Content Type in SharePoint Designer 2010 is very straightforward and easy to use. But before we do so, we must define the necessary queries in the external data source (WCF, web services or .NET assemblies). So, first and most importantly in this walkthrough is to bring the data from our external data sources to SharePoint. Then we need to implement these two operations: Read Item and Read List (with filter) to support our External Content Type.

Create WCF service in SharePoint 2010 using Visual Studio 2010
You can follow the step below or Download it from here

1. New Project, Under SharePoint 2010 templates, Select Empty SharePoint Project, and name it EggheadcafeWCF
2. Select Deploy as farm solution
3. Add new item: WCF Service (CKSDev) and name it EggheadcafeWCF
4. Adding Code to the WCF Service

The IEggheadcafeWCF interface defines the service and user profiles supported by the service. The EggheadcafeWCF class provides the implementation of the IEggheadcafeWCF interface. The following steps describe how to implement the Finder, Specific Finder operations that are required so that the service can be used to create an external content type.

a. Click the Add Reference dialog box. Add these references:
• Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles
• Microsoft.Office.Server
• System.Runtime.Serialization
• System.Web

b. Create new class and call it User.cs - Replace the contents of the User.cs file with the following code:

using System.Runtime.Serialization;

namespace EggheadcafeWCF
{
[DataContract]
public class User
{
[DataMember]
public string Id;
[DataMember]
public string Name;


public User(string id, string name)
{
Id = id;
Name = name;
}

public User()
{
}
}
}

c. In the Visual Studio Solution Explorer, double-click the IEggheadcafeWCF.cs file to open it in the Code Editor. Replace the contents of the IEggheadcafeWCF.cs file with the following code.

using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ServiceModel;

namespace EggheadcafeWCF
{
[ServiceContract]
public interface IEggheadcafeWCF
{
[OperationContract]
User GetUserById(string id);

[OperationContract]
List GetUsers(string filter);
}
}

d. In the Visual Studio Solution Explorer, double-click the EggheadcafeWCF.svc.cs file to open it in the Code Editor. Replace the contents of the EggheadcafeWCF.svc.cs file with the following code.

using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles;
using Microsoft.SharePoint;
using Microsoft.SharePoint.Client.Services;
using System.ServiceModel.Activation;

namespace EggheadcafeWCF
{
[BasicHttpBindingServiceMetadataExchangeEndpoint]
[AspNetCompatibilityRequirements(RequirementsMode = AspNetCompatibilityRequirementsMode.Required)]
public class EggheadcafeWCF : IEggheadcafeWCF
{
public User GetUserById(string id)
{
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(id))
return null;

var users = GetUsersFromDatabase();
users = GetUsersFromSharePoint(users, id);
var user = (from u in users
where u.Id.ToLower() == id.ToLower()
select u).OfType().FirstOrDefault();

return user;
}

public List GetUsers(string filter)
{
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(filter))
return null;

var users = GetUsersFromDatabase();
users = GetUsersFromSharePoint(users, filter);
var userQuery = (from user in users
where user.Name.ToLower().Contains(filter.ToLower())
select user);

return userQuery.ToList().Count == 0 ? null : userQuery.ToList();
}

private static List GetUsersFromSharePoint(List sharepointUsers, string filter)
{
if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(filter))
return null;

SPSecurity.RunWithElevatedPrivileges(delegate()
{
var site = new SPSite("http://moss");
var serviceContext = SPServiceContext.GetContext(site);
var userProfileManager = new UserProfileManager(serviceContext);
ProfileBase[] searchResults = userProfileManager.Search(filter);
sharepointUsers.AddRange(searchResults.Select(profile =>
new User(profile.PublicUrl.ToString().Substring(profile.PublicUrl.ToString().IndexOf("?accountname=") + 13),
profile.DisplayName)));
site.Dispose();
});

return sharepointUsers;

}

private static List GetUsersFromDatabase()
{
var users = new List();
var user = new User { Id = "1", Name = "Gustavo Achong" }; users.Add(user);
user = new User { Id = "2", Name = "Catherine Abel" }; users.Add(user);
user = new User { Id = "3", Name = "Kim Abercrombie" }; users.Add(user);
user = new User { Id = "4", Name = "Humberto Acevedo" }; users.Add(user);
user = new User { Id = "5", Name = "Pilar Ackerman" }; users.Add(user);
user = new User { Id = "6", Name = "Frances Adams" }; users.Add(user);
user = new User { Id = "7", Name = "Margaret Smith" }; users.Add(user);
user = new User { Id = "8", Name = "Carla Adams" }; users.Add(user);
user = new User { Id = "9", Name = "Jay Adams" }; users.Add(user);
user = new User { Id = "10", Name = "Ronald Adina" }; users.Add(user);
user = new User { Id = "11", Name = "Samuel Agcaoili" }; users.Add(user);
user = new User { Id = "12", Name = "James Aguilar" }; users.Add(user);
user = new User { Id = "13", Name = "Robert Ahlering" }; users.Add(user);
user = new User { Id = "14", Name = "François Ferrier" }; users.Add(user);
user = new User { Id = "15", Name = "Kim Akers" }; users.Add(user);
user = new User { Id = "16", Name = "Lili Alameda" }; users.Add(user);
user = new User { Id = "17", Name = "Amy Alberts" }; users.Add(user);
user = new User { Id = "18", Name = "Anna Albright" }; users.Add(user);
user = new User { Id = "19", Name = "Milton Albury" }; users.Add(user);
user = new User { Id = "20", Name = "Paul Albury" }; users.Add(user);
user = new User { Id = "21", Name = "Gregory Alcorn" }; users.Add(user);
user = new User { Id = "22", Name = "J. Phillip Alderson" }; users.Add(user);
user = new User { Id = "23", Name = "Michelle Alexander" }; users.Add(user);
user = new User { Id = "24", Name = "Sean Alexander" }; users.Add(user);
user = new User { Id = "25", Name = "Phyllis Allen" }; users.Add(user);
user = new User { Id = "26", Name = "Marvin Allen" }; users.Add(user);
user = new User { Id = "27", Name = "Michael Allen" }; users.Add(user);
user = new User { Id = "28", Name = "Cecil Altamirano" }; users.Add(user);
user = new User { Id = "29", Name = "Oscar Alexander" }; users.Add(user);
user = new User { Id = "30", Name = "Sandra Alpuerto" }; users.Add(user);
return users;
}
}
}

5. Deploy the solution
6. Test your WCF service with the Test Client tool (WcfTestClient.exe). You can find the WCF Test Client (WcfTestClient.exe) in the following location: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\
File Add new Service: type http:///_vti_bin/EggheadcafeWCF/EggheadcafeWCF.svc/mex

Create an External Content Type with Filters to show in picker

When you create operations for the external content type, you can see them in the External Content Type Operations part in the Operations Design View.

1. In SharePoint Designer 2010, open the SharePoint site where you want to store the External Content Type
2. In the left navigation pane, click External Content Types.
3. In the contextual Ribbon for entities, click External Content Type.
4. Click the Name link and type Users.
5. Click the Display Name link and type Users.
6. Click the Namespace link and type EggheadcafeWCF
7. Click the External System link and click Add Connection, select WCF Service

Type these properties:
Service Metadata URL: http:///_vti_bin/EggheadcafeWCF/EggheadcafeWCF.svc/mex
Metadata Connection Mode: WSDL
Service Endpoint URL: http:///_vti_bin/EggheadcafeWCF/EggheadcafeWCF.svc


After validating the connection to the WCF service, the Operation Design View pane lists the methods in the WCF service definition in the Data Source Explorer window as shown below:



Once you have created a Read Item and a Read List operation, you can create an external list by using this external content type.

8. Create a Read Item operation.
a. Right-click the GetUserById method in the Data Source Explorer, and then select New Read Item Operation on the context menu.
b. In the Read Item wizard, click Next to keep the default name and display name values for the operation.
c. Click the Id field in the Data Source Elements group box and select the Map to Identifier checkbox in the Properties group box.



d. Click Next to continue
e. Click the id parameter in the Data Source Elements group box.
f. Select the Map to Identifier checkbox in the Properties group box.



g. Click Finish.

9. Create a Read List operation.

a. Right click the GetUsers method, and then click New Read List Operation on the context menu.
b. In the Read List wizard, click Next to keep the default name and display name values for the operation.
c. Click the Click to Add filter on the Input Parameters Configuration
Select Comparison as Filter Type, Name as Filter Field and Checked the Use to create match list in external item picker



d. Click Ok and then Next
e. Click op Id in the Data Source Elements group box.
f. Checked Map to Identifier



g. Select Last Name field and click the Show In Picker checkbox.



10. Click Finish.
11. Save the External Content Type
12. Set permissions and verify that the External Content Type is saved correctly
a. On the Central Administration Home page, click Application Management.
b. On the Application Management page, in the Service Applications section, click Manage service applications.
c. On the Service Applications page, find the Business Data Connectivity Service Application, in the Service Application Information page you will found your BDCApplication:



d. Set permissions on the Users external system. In the Set Object Permissions dialog box, type all authenticated users into the field. Click Check Names, and then click Add.


Add an External Item Picker Control Filter in an InfoPath Form Using InfoPath 2010

1. Open InfoPath Designer 2010, click Blank Form, and then click Design Form.
2. Add some text (Users) and an External Item Picker



3. The figure below shows how the General tab might look for getting the Users external content type from the WCF Service



4. The figure below shows how the General tab might look for getting the Users external content type from the WCF Service



5. Select File, Info. Click the Form Options button. The Form Options dialog appears.
6. In the Form Options dialog, select Security and Trust.
7. Change the security level to Full Trust, Click OK.
8. Save the InfoPathForm
9. Publish the form, Select File, Publish and click SharePoint Server.

Select your SharePoint site


Checked Enable this form to be filled out by using a browser


Publish the form on your computer


Click Next, Next and Publish.
Set up administrator-approved form template using Central Administration


1. Navigate to the Central Administration, Click General Application Settings then Manage form templates
2. Upload the form you published on your machine.




3. Activate the form on a site collection; navigate to the site collection you want to publish the form.
4. Go to Site Actions > Site Settings > Site Collection Features
5. Activate the EggheadcafeInfoPath feature



6. Create new Forms library, go to the Site Actions menu, and select More Options. Click on the Library and Select Form Library, Type Eggheadcafe Forms in de name field


Click Create

7. Click Library Settings, In the Advanced Settings Page, select Yes under Allow management of content types and click OK.


8. Choose the link Add from existing site content types. Add EggheadcafeInfoPath content type


9. Click on Form, under Content Type, then click Delete this content type
10. Test your form, navigate to Eggheadcafe Forms library and click Add document



Sorce code

You can download the Visual Studio and the InfoPath form from here.
Summary

This article is to show you how to build a truly powerful InfoPath forms with search capabilities. With only few lines of code the user can now perform complex search operations on SharePoint content and external data sources.