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October 2008 - Posts
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 Hi Everyone,
I can’t express how excited and how tired I am. It has been a wonderful journey to bring this type of conference to Canada. I received some great feedback on how we are going to adjust the experience for the next cities and I'm floored about all the positive feedback that shows we are on the right track. Here’s a summary from the context of a TechDays guest. I’ve tried to take a scenario approach to capture the experiences as we’ve had many individuals share their experience and comments with us. When I first heard of TechDays, I was excited and a little be skeptical that you can move so far from the marketing sessions to deliver on this technical conference. I arrived on the first day and was pleasantly surprised as the logistics and breakfast was unlike any of your past events. Being treated as a guest vs. an attendee was a nice touch. Oh yeah, the TechieCrunch box was pretty neat as well......it took me a while, but I got it.....the spoon is a pen. Then it was time for the rubber to meet the road....the first session. Bringing real world speakers that have been then and done it was a nice touch. You can see they were nervous and as there some early logistics to work out as we got started….so it was sort of slow to get going. But after that, it seemed to pick up and it took stride, especially day two. There were lots of great speakers, some needed some more work and can use some practice, yet the speakers, their experience and the content really made the difference. There was so much content over the two days it was hard not to find something for anyone. We found ourselves mixing it up and went to 3 or 5 tracks. Here are some ideas I’ve gathered to help improve the experience. - It really did show it was your 1st event - which I find REALLY weird since you have been in business how long...glad you are taking the focus off marketing
- I would recommend it to others, and I would go yearly to such an event....please make it yearly and give time in advance to know when it’s coming
- Provide some more healthy snacks, the food was great...(nice touch with the break snacks) and there was lots
- Provide the ppt in soft copy or allow access for attendees onsite...maybe provide all demos and ppts on a usb key
- Bring in more of the real world speakers and invest some time in supporting them with speaker training
- A little confusing to realize that I got copies of all the platform software....as part TechNet subscription
- Need more interaction, fun stuff to drive connection as it was great to share and meet people that are deploying the technology
- Great clarity.....Techdays is about current technology which I can deploy today.....PDC and EnergizeIT is about looking to the future
- Overall a great start and we can see the possibilities
- Having access to the speakers was great….can we get more time with them….i.e. open panel at the end of the day or lunch?
- Sessions need to be longer so not to rush and have more time to discuss the topics.
- Love to see some sort of hands on built into the sessions….maybe access to onsite demos?
On to the next city and continuing to improve and refine the experience as we go. From the Toronto event it’s clear that we need to support this type of conference across Canada and we will. Please keep sending me your comments and feedback as that is what has gotten us this far. We can only make it better and build this into a yearly conference based upon your desire to help us make it happen. Please feel free to contact me directly as my email door is always open ..... john.oxley@microsoft.com See you in Montréal! John 
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 Well, it's a little sad, but we just finished up packing up all the equipment, striking the rooms and even had a post TechDays debrief meeting with all the speakers and event staff to capture our learnings and roll them into the next city and future TechDays.
What a conference, what an experience - it was great meeting all the people who took the time to connect and talk with us. We've posted a bunch of pictures online in our Flickr group - if you took any or plan on taking any, feel free to join up and share your shots. We recorded over 30 interviews and comments on what people liked, disliked and what we could do to make it better next time. I was carrying both my Nikon D40x to capture a lot of the shots you see as well as my M-Audio podcast recorder to get some cool audio and impromptu commentary - stay tuned for an "audio collage" from the event. I'll see what I can do to put that through some post production and get it uploaded here on the blog. I've got to run and have a post TechDays pint, or two, or three with the team. Cheers Mate! I can't wait to take this on the road - Montreal, here we come! 
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 Welcome to day TWO of the Toronto edition of TechDays 2008 in Canada. As our first two day event, it was a little strange going to the hotel last night, remembering that we had to be back bright and early at the Toronto Convention Centre.
I wanted to introduce you to our Learning Kit - A.K.A. Techie Crunch. Instead of a giveaway bag full of marketing material, this box is packed full of learning goodness. - 6 month TechNet+ Direct subscription
- 30% off Certification Voucher (any MS exam)
- Virtualization Kit
- Visual Studio 2008 Professional (full version)
- Microsoft Expression Web 2 (full version)
- Complete TechEd DVD set from TechEd North America 2007
- $100 discount coupon for Dev/SQL Teach
- Exclusive access to online training portal
- A Brain Warming Toque
- A spoon you can take notes with
The cereal boxes are at hit! You can get yours exclusively by attending a TechDays event across Canada. Before anyone asks - they are fully recyclable and made from paper containing recycled content. Pierre and Rodney are thinking of doing an "unboxing record" of the cereal box in the not too distant future. Stay Tuned. 
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I am taking a couple of minutes of rest to have an diet coke in-between sessions here in Toronto. Man - if I had a pedometer, I'd swear that I had walked a couple of kilometres so far today. 
I acted as host for our lunch time session and reinforced the opportunity people had to make connections with other TechDays guests who had self identified themselves with the track colours. It's something new we are trying to help facilitate some of these networking opportunities. It's self identification by attaching a matching track colour ribbon to your conference badge. 
Look for other like minded individuals in the halls by matching the colours and you are set to have a common ground of interest. At Lunch time - we even had "recommended seating areas" based on colour, to increase your odds of connecting even more. A couple of members of our team decided to take this to another level and organize a "Women in IT" roundtable. 
When you come out to TechDays - seize the opportunity to connect up with others and makes some new connections to strengthen your network. We'll have the colour tags at the front of every room and will be continuing this trend across all the cities. 
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Wow. This place is packed. People are flowing in and out of sessions and breaks, things are running smoothly - it's been a great start to a wickedly cool conference! Don't forget to keep your Registration tags for the entire event  Mine is an all access.
 My brothers is an attendee pass. You will need to get scanned to ensure you have a seat in the session you registered for. 
This is a quick shot in the Windows Development track session "Building Killer LOB Applications with WPF" - why am I showing a DEV session instead of an IT Pro session? it was the first room I walked into. :) If you are scheduled to come out to TechDays in another city - make sure to arrive early and to get to your designated sessions in time to get a good seat. Despite the surprise SNOW FALL in Toronto this morning - a large percentage of people came early and avoided the traffic congestion. While you are at the event - seek out and find yourself one of these kind individuals 
They are here and would love to get a moment of your time so you can tell us how we're doing and give us some direct feedback on the event or virtually any other topic. More Updates To Come! 
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Pierre snapped this picture of me in the hotel bar - finishing off a "rolling deck" for the kick-off of TechDays Toronto in as little as 7 hrs from this post. - Our team is ready.
- The speakers are ready.
- The venue is ready.
- Are you?
Things look awesome - I can't wait for it to start and see the first people roll in.  A two day event, crammed packed with 40 sessions of content and a wicked take away Learning Kit filled with resources and tools you can use to continue after the event is wrapped up on Thursday night. Breakfast is included - but don't try eating the contents of the box on the left - it's your Learning Kit...
I thought I'd snap a picture of it earlier tonight and managed to "borrow one" from the event staff - but they wouldn't let me open it to show you what's inside - it's for attendees only - you'll get yours tomorrow! :( Have You Registered Yet? Bring your confirmation. Forgot it - they can look it up, provided you have ID. Haven't registered as of yet, but want to come on down on short notice - you can register and pay on site. Once you are there - look around - socialize. You will be mixing with like minded IT Professionals and Developers who are seeking to further their skills development in similar areas to yours. Take this opportunity to build your professional network. In fact - to help identify your track preference, grab yourself a track coloured ribbon from the front of the room to help identify your passion to other IT Pros and Developers. I have to hit the sack. Come on by and say hi if you see me around the halls - Look For The Hat! Stop me and have a chat - take a picture or speak your mind - I am really looking forward to hearing what you have to say. 
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 Well as I look over at my TechDays Countdown gadget I am reading 4 days, 15 hours, 14 minutes and 12 seconds to go before the start of TechDays! About time I got the hardware set up for the virtualization track don’t you think? I’ve been working on getting this all set up and testing the demos and it looks like we are ready to go! Dell again stepped up to provide us with some hardware and with the virtualization track we had some special hardware requirements. For the virtualization track we have the following setup…
Domain: TechDays.lab
DC01: Dell M6300 notebook, Core2Duo 2.66 GHz CPU with 4GB of RAM. This is acting as the DC as well as the SCVMM computer and is the computer that the speakers will use to control their demos.
HV01: Dell PowerEdge 805S, dual Quad Core Operton 1.7 GHz CPU with 32GB of RAM. This is the server that is running Hyper-V and will be used in all Hyper-V related demos.
VS01: Dell PowerEdge 2950, dual Quad Core 2.4 GHz CPU with 12GB of RAM. This is the server that is running Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 which hosts a few of the VMs for some sessions.
Client01: Dell M6300, Core2Du0 2.66 GHz with 4GB of RAM. This is a client PC running Windows Vista SP1 x64 with Office 2007. This is the PowerPoint machine.
SW01: Dell PowerConnect 2716 GBit Switch
All servers are running Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition x64.
There is still time to register for TechDays and the early bird price has been extended right up to October 29th! And be sure to get your seat reserved for the virtualization track sessions when registering. You wouldn’t want to have to sit in a developer session would you :P 
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Typically hotfixes are released on the second Tuesday of each month as you are all well aware. Occasionally, I can personally only remember three including this one, there are out of band hotfixes released. While we don’t normally post hotfix release notifications considering this is an out of band release I wanted to let you all know about it. Microsoft Security Bulletin MS08-067 – Critical Vulnerability in Server Service Could Allow Remote Code Execution (958644) http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/Bulletin/MS08-067.mspx Executive Summary This security update resolves a privately reported vulnerability in the Server service. The vulnerability could allow remote code execution if an affected system received a specially crafted RPC request. On Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003 systems, an attacker could exploit this vulnerability without authentication to run arbitrary code. It is possible that this vulnerability could be used in the crafting of a wormable exploit. Firewall best practices and standard default firewall configurations can help protect network resources from attacks that originate outside the enterprise perimeter. This security update is rated Critical for all supported editions of Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and rated Important for all supported editions of Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. For more information, see the subsection, Affected and Non-Affected Software, in the link above. The security update addresses the vulnerability by correcting the way that the Server service handles RPC requests. For more information about the vulnerability, see the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) subsection for the specific vulnerability entry under the next section, Vulnerability Information in the link above. Recommendation Microsoft recommends that customers apply the update immediately. Known Issues None. If you experience any issues please call 1-866-PCSAFETY. There is no charge for this call. Update Availability The update has been pushed to all Windows Update servers and will appear on your WSUS server(s) as soon as you synchronize them. You can also download the patch for your operating system at the link posted above. 
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- Do you work in a small IT shop or are you the only IT resource that your company has?
- Are you the "go to" guy/gal for anything to do with technology?
- Do you (or others) consider yourself a "jack of all trades"?
- Do you work in a small company with less than 250 PCs?
- do you spend most of your day reactively fixing and addressing issues that come up and feel like you can't proactively plan to get ahead?
If you answered yes to any of these questions this blog post and series is for you. This is the second post in a series of blog articles aimed at sharing solutions to issues facing IT Professionals working in this type of environment. We’re taking articles from YOU on how you’ve overcome issues in the past with innovative solutions to get the job done. Maybe it’s using Microsoft technology – maybe it is not – what matters is that it addresses a problem, allowing you to get on with your day. Let me introduce you to Sean Kearney, Network Administrator at McKesson Canada. He’s a devoted and passionate computer enthusiast from the early 80’s to the present day, having used just about every microcomputer ever. He’s self taught in computer programming with 65xx machine code, working with many technologies – but primarily Microsoft. He deals with “anything thrown at him” from gnawed keyboards to recovery of Exchange servers, to networking setups and isolating the realm of the unknown. Occasionally he lets loose with song unfortunately… When I reached out to the blog readers as well as some of my contacts from over the years looking for people to share their solutions in this series – Sean’s post made it’s way through my filters to my inbox. I know that troubleshooting blacklisting of mail servers was a pain when I was a mail administrator and lead to a lot of frustration both from my users AND from myself – trying to get the company unblocked! Sean has some good resources and insight – have a read below! 
IT Pro Team Blog | IT Managers Blog |Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn
My Shared Bookmarks
p.s: Are YOU up for the challenge of contributing your thoughts, ideas and solutions to “The IT Guy / IT Gal” series? Contact me directly or use the email link at the top of the blog with draft stories AND/OR suggested topics. Let's ramp up the noise and start giving back!!! -+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+- Well what a fine how do ya do. You've been blacklisted on the internet. Something slipped by security and a worm blasted it's way out. (And blast it did!) You've isolated and cleared out the problem but now you have to deal with the mess. The Blacklisting. The inability to send out e-mail because your public IP address is being rejected by every client. So how can you confirm this? A quick search of the internet on your choice of search engine will yield several results. What do you need to know? You need to know the public Internet IP address your MX record, your mail server that is sending mail. I found a very effective site www.mxtoolbox.com Choose their tab "Blacklists" and type in the suspect DNS name or IP address. If you're on the "HOTLIST" it will show up as a "RED" on their particular site (Other sites may show it up as "LISTED" or "BAD" or "MOST EVIL MAIL SERVER ON THE PLANET" (Haven't seen that particular one) Most of the sites will have a hyperlink to the particular provider. Most of the particular providers will have a fairly easy method to remove your address from the list. (Some others bill and 'Express fee') to remove it immediately. In some cases you will have clients that reject you simply based upon mail flow. TrustedSource.org is one such provider. They actually track the flow of email on the internet and web access and track 'Naughty sources'. Some clients subscribe to this particular type of service to determine who to reject mail from. Government of Ontario is one such place I have heard of using this service. Dealing with trustedsource.org is not a pain either. A quick email to trustedsource@securecomputing.com with Domain and IP address details from a NON blacklisted email address will resolve the blacklisting from their system. Take note, in most cases, the removal will take time. Your network goofed, it is YOUR problem and you cannot rush any of this. So how do you avoid this from happening in the first place? Yes obvious. Security. Keep your patches up to date, keep your antivirus and malware up to spec, make sure your firewall is as restrictive as possible to keep potential problems from flowing out. And diligence above all, will keep you protected. Remember, almost any problem can be solved. Just about every problem can be prevented. 
Sean
The Energized Tech
Dedication and Inspiration creating the new Generation 
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Over the past year you might have noticed some changes going on at http://technet.com and the changes keep coming. The other day the new TechNet Canada Community page went live! This is the page to find out what user groups are in your community, when the next meeting is, read the latest posts from some Canadian tech bloggers as well as meet Canadian MVPs.
Be sure to check it out and find out what is going on in your community!
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-ca/bb291006.aspx 
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I am sure you have all heard of the Asus Eee PC series of netbooks. They seem to be the hot gadget lately and not one to miss out on a gadget trend I picked up an Eee PC 901 the other day. It arrived on Tuesday and I’ve been toying around with it all week. Before I get any further the specs… - 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU
- 1GB DDR2 (can be upgraded to 2GB)
- 20GB SSD drive (1x4GB and 1x16GB)
- 8.9” widescreen at 1024x600
- 1.3MP Webcam
- USB (3), LAN, 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth, VGA out, SDHC
- 6 Cell battery
All that in a tiny 2.3lb, 9”x7”x1” package. This is it sitting on my Dell Latitude D830! 
Not bad specs for a $450 PC. Now I did buy the Linux based system running Xandros. The price was the same as the XP unit but the difference is the onboard storage, the XP unit is only 12GB and since I have a TechNet subscription I went for the Linux unit with the “large” HDD. Now the Xandros Linux installed was quite interesting with a highly customized UI that made it pretty simple and straight forward to do everyday things, it did not allow for much post setup configuration. I quickly removed Xandros and tried the customized Ubuntu Eee distro and while there have been some big changes since the last time I used Ubuntu (Ubuntu Eee is based on 8.04) there were still some challenges. Couldn’t find a good Twitter client, blog editor that supported all the different platforms I post to, Pidgin is a decent IM client but can’t compare to the new Live Messenger beta or Yahoo Messenger. So I thought about installing XP and then figured I must be able to install Vista on this thing. Hard drive space was the only real concern I had so I downloaded vLite to shrink the install. I figured I could remove all the language support (other than English), most of the drivers (besides the Intel IDE drivers) and even a few of the services like FireWire (since it doesn’t support it). I was able to get a Vista Business small enough to install from a 1GB SD card. I used this old tip from a previous blog post to make the SD card bootable and then the following command to copy the contents of my newly created vLite ISO. xcopy x:\*.* /s /e /f y:\ Pop in the SD card, boot up and start the install. Now by default the 4GB drive is the one the OS installs too but I chose the 16GB drive and will put my data on a 16GB SDHC card. The 4GB drive will be used for Temp files, WU files and the page file. It took a bit longer than normal but the install was complete and then after looking at the list of hardware, went about downloading drivers. Surprisingly enough the Asus driver downloads, even though I chose XP, all had a Vista driver included in the download and it was up and running in no time. So how well does Vista run on such a tiny PC? Quite well in fact. While I may bump up the memory to the 2GB limit since I have spare laptop memory laying around (I mean who doesn’t?) it does quite well as is. As you can see the Vista Experience Index scores are pretty good! 
OK not a gaming PC but not too bad but I think I am going to try XP Pro next just for fun! 
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Technorati Tags: techDays_CAHello Everyone! During this time of global economic instability, It’s important that IT Professionals and Developers remain focused on delivering value, enabling business and increasing the impact it has to across your organization. From speaking with many of you, without a doubt, the current economic situation is a topic that is on everyone’s mind. In uncertain times making sure you have the right skills to make an impact is important. I see this is a real concern and feel we need to help. I’m not an economist, I can’t predict the future or the end of the economic uncertainty, but, what I can do is focus on what we can control and extend the early bird price for TechDays 2008 to Oct 29th!  Act now to take advantage of this opportunity as TechDays not only provides you the right skills you need, it also gives you the tools and the support necessary to ensure you can have an impact and support you in your career.
Help Grow your Skills: - This is definitely not your “typical” MSDN/TechNet tour. It is not a marketing event - it's is a professional development event We truly are focusing on helping you to grow your skills across a breath of products and solutions while learning from someone that has the real world experience.
- With over 30 technical sessions with a technical depth of 200 or greater the content will be technically deep, and delivered by an array of great speakers. We truly are focused in on helping you and ensuring you have a great experience at the event with content reigning supreme.
Provide you with the Tools you need: - You get a lot of great free stuff. A 6 month subscription to TechNet Plus (which includes 2 free support incidents), Microsoft® Visual Studio 2008 Professional - Full Version, Microsoft® Expression Web 2 - Full Version, the TechEd 2008 DVD Set, a 30% off Certification voucher - applicable to all Microsoft Commercial Certification Exams, Microsoft® Visual Studio Team System 2008 Team Suite - Evaluation Software, Microsoft® Expression Studio 2 - Evaluation Software, Office Communications Server 2007 - Evaluation Software, and A $100 Discount Coupon for DevTeach/SQL Teach Training
Provide you the support you need: - Included in the TechDays Learning Kit - TechNet Plus subscription helps you prepare for critical issues and plan for future deployments by providing fast and convenient access to the latest software for evaluation without time or feature limits, beta releases, 2 complimentary Professional Support incidents and other technical information and tools to get your jobs done faster. Here is what’s included:
- Full-version evaluation software without time limits
- Beta software releases
- Technical Information Library
- 2 Professional Support Incidents
- Managed newsgroups
- Online concierge Chat
- Technical training resources and Microsoft E-Learning Courses
I look forward to seeing you there! take care, John
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 As much as I like to curse the Canadian mobile Telco's about their rates, sometimes out of date devices and rates I do have some nice things to say about Rogers today. I was informed by Rick that they (Rogers/Fido) had released the Windows Mobile 6.1 upgrade for my recently purchased Samsung Jack (aka SGH-i616). Windows Mobile 6.1 is well, a .1 upgrade with a few tweaks, but overall very much like version 6.0. So what’s new? Well the full list is available here, these are my favourites.
- Sliding panel home screen (as silly as this sounds the UI is so much nicer)
- Threaded SMS (I got used to this on my Treo 750w)
- Exchange Autodiscovery (just like in Outlook 2007)
- IE Mobile zoom and page view
- Support for System Centre Mobile Device Manager
- Bluetooth headset automatic pairing (while this will simplify setup I leave BT off for security and don’t talk/text and drive)
The rest of the improvements from WM 5.0 to WM 6.0 are still in place. Most of the big changes came on the security front and there is a great webcast with Steve Riley available from TechEd EMEA (no registration required) and I urge you to check it out. And if you have a Jack from Rogers or Fido you can get the update for your device at http://www.samsung.com/jackupgrader 
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Time is quickly running out on the Early Bird Pricing for Microsoft Tech•Days Canada 2008. Make sure to act now before the deadline of Wednesday, October 15th. At this point, you might be thinking, "Why should I attend?" Here are three good reasons:
First, we’ve got some of the top developers and IT professionals in Canada delivering presentations at this event; folks like Charlie Russel, Mitch Tulloch, Tom Moreau and many others. These folks will be sharing their insights and experiences with a wide range of Microsoft technologies that are in use today. 
Second, this is a great opportunity for you to connect with your peers. If you’re a student looking to connect with potential employers, make sure to bring your resume because you’ll never know who you’ll meet. If you’re a professional in the industry, bring along your business cards. It’s never a bad idea to forge relationships with other folks in your field. If you a developer or IT professional looking to broaden your skills, be sure you get a good night’s sleep because we’ll be hitting you with a ton of relevant news and information. 
Third, we’ll be providing a Learning Kit to all attendees, which is valued at over $1000. (!) This kit includes the following highlights: TechNet Plus Direct 6 month subscription
TechEd 2008 DVD Set)
30% off certification voucher, applicable to all Microsoft Certification Exams And much more! In fact, I would encourage folks to go read more about the Learning Kit on the TechDays Website. This is a “Can’t Miss” event that will provide you with valuable insights and skills on Microsoft technologies being used today. If you’re planning to attend, make sure to encourage your colleagues and/or friends to tag along! 
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 Well I spent three days this week attending the SecTor pre-con training on Wireless Hacking and SecTor itself and it was worth every minute! The group behind SecTor put on a great event (I should note I was on the advisory committee) with world class speakers from around the world. I thought I’d provide a quick recap along with some links to help you keep up with the ever changing face of IT security.
Wireless Hacking with Dino Covotsos was without a doubt the most interesting training experience I have attended in a long time. First off I haven’t spent an entire day using Linux in a while and the total hands on approach Dino and his co-instructor Charlie used really allowed the entire class to test out WEP and WPA/WPA2 cracking techniques as well as steps to mitigate them. It was also very nice to have Edmonton’s very own Brad RenderMan Haines on hand to share his vast insight into wireless security. While, like you, I had read that WEP was insecure and have not used it in a few years I didn’t realize the tools available to crack WEP in minutes. Actually testing it out on a demo wireless access point really drives home the point. I didn’t realize that the same was also true for WPA/WPA2 access points. While those are a little more difficult (I did get in after about 20 minutes) they are easy to exploit but do offer some mitigation. So what did I walk away with? - MAC Address Filtering is ineffective on its own as there are tools to change a MAC with one command
- Not broadcasting your SSID is also ineffective because the traffic can still be “seen” with wireless sniffers and the SSID can be found within those packets
- Change your SSID. In order to crack WPA/WPA2 one must compute a rainbow table for each specific SSID. These tables are available to download online for the most popular SSIDs (Linksys, default, SMC, Home and another 997 common SSIDs) Using something unique will require the attacker to generate their own set of tables which will take a long time.
- Cycle your SSID. In the last point I mentioned it would take a long time but not forever :)
- Use a complex WPA/WPA2 key! Follow the same principles as you would for a secure domain admin password. 16 characters, mix of upper/lowercase, numbers and special characters and throw in a space or two. Passphrases are better than passwords!
- Even though I stated MAC filtering and hidden SSIDs are ineffective, when combined with other security techniques they do add layers to your security model.
- If you can use authentication on your WiFi networks. 802.1x with certificates or RADIUS both work well.
At the actual event itself the most popular area had to be the Lock Picking Village hosted by Deviant Ollman. Again seeing someone pick a lock on TV or in a movie looks pretty simple, what you might not realize is that in most cases it is even simpler. Lock bumps, wafer keys, Bic pens and beer cans are all very common and can get a large majority of locks open in seconds. It didn’t take much for me to pick up the tools and give it a try opening most locks from your basic combination lock, to bike locks to deadbolts in seconds. Deviant’s Kahlua and milk powered session really made you think about physical security. I urge you to look at the content on his page and re-assess the physical security in your building. It wasn’t all technical though as Johnny Long was back, this time delivering a keynote titled No Tech Hacking based on his new book. Johnny was a very entertaining and enlightening speaker who makes you look at the people, places and things around you in a very different way. His swag was the most popular at the event as well by selling out long before anything else did, most likely due to the fact that 100% of the money went to his group call http://ihackcharities.org/ As I drove home on Wednesday night after the event all I could think about was October 5-7 2009 as I am already looking forward to SecTor 2009! 
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something worth sharing.
Registration is open till October 25th for testing New Virtual Lab based Exam 70-113: TS: Windows® Server 2008 Active Directory, Configuring
The new pilot exam “70-113: TS: Windows® Server 2008 Active Directory, Configuring” tests candidate’s abilities to actually perform tasks and solve problems in virtual lab environment like they would do it normally in a real world. We are pleased to offer you the opportunity to experience this pilot exam at no charge …
This pilot exam will not provide you with a score as with normal beta exams. This pilot is a test of the exam experience, so only a portion of the final exam will be presented to you during this pilot.
This pilot exam will not be added to your transcript and you will need to take the exam in its released form in order to be awarded the credential. Find exam preparation information: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/exams/70-640.mspx
An exam that doesn’t count. Apart from Masochism ( as james states on his blog) , why would you want to do it ? Here’s why
Upon completion of this pilot exam, the first 3000 candidates will receive 3 (!) free exam vouchers that can be used to register for any Microsoft Certification exam delivered at a Prometric testing center.
The voucher will be distributed electronically 4 weeks after end of Pilot.
Apart from needing multiple visits to the test centre that’s a much better deal than the usual free beta (spend 2 or 3 times as long on the exam, but get it for free). Here’s how to do it.
You must register at least 7 days prior to taking the exam. Register before October 25th to take the exam before October 31st.
Send your opinion about exam experience to: http://blogs.technet.com/betaexams/ and to: pbexam@microsoft.com 
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Dear {Enter Your Manager’s Name Here}, I enjoy my job and have always appreciated how well you manage me. As you know, I don’t ask for much. The request for a complete rip and replace of the infrastructure came during a moment of frustration after a long stint of binge energy drink consumption. I continue to be a humble employee with simple needs, and I am writing to you to ask if I could attend TechDays Canada in {insert city name here - ex: Toronto}, [insert date here – ex: October 29th & 30th}. It’s not like I am asking to travel out of country to TechEd Orlando – this is just down the road from here. Wait! Before you respond, let me explain. This is not the typical Microsoft Canada “tour” that is more “marketing” than substance. TechDays_CA (which is what the kids on Facebook call it) is where Microsoft has partnered with some of the best Canadian technical speakers local to each city to deliver some absolutely awesome content. TechDays is where the speakers are not just marketing folks – ok, Rick, Rod and John Bristowe will be there - but check out this line-up of actual developers and IT architects from the community who are delivering sessions: Steve Syfuhs (Software Architect, DoubleNatural ITS), Val Matison (SQL Guru), Barry Gervin (founding partner, ObjectSharp) and Stephen Giles (Technology Specialist – SQL) just to name a few. Remember those tough questions that came up in last weeks team meeting that I didn't have the answer to at the time? Well, I will have multiple opportunities to talk directly with the speakers and other technical experts throughout the conference. But it isn’t just the speakers; it’s also about the other attendees. You’ve always said that networking with other peer IT Professionals in the city is the key to building my support network. After all, they are using the same tools and technologies we are. I can learn a lot from them and see how they have overcome issues we have run into. I keep reading the blogs (on my own time, of course) and everyone says that networking is one of the top reasons to attend. I’ll be searching out like minded IT Pros with interests in virtualization and SQL as part of the social networking that will be taking place throughout the conference. I promise I won’t come home empty handed. I just read that they have replaced the glossy marketing handouts with something they are calling “the learning kit” and it’s jammed packed with actual useful stuff. Remember how I asked for that TechNet subscription last year? All attendees are getting a Full Featured TechNet Plus Direct version for 6 months! I know I wasn't`t able to attend TechEd in the states last spring, but they’ve included a FULL DVD set of it`s sessions and content! Plus, I will come back with a ton of business cards and new connections. This isn’t the typical tour that Microsoft has put on in the past. TechDays has been designed and organized from the ground up by the Technical folks – not the marketing folks at Microsoft. I don’t want to pressure you into making a snap decision – but I hear that the best discount available to attend (early bird pricing = 50% off!) is ending on October 15th… I need to go to www.techdays.ca to register before it’s too late! Thanks in advance for your approval on my humble request and I promise to bring you back a tuque, trip report, a learning kit and a very inspired and much smarter employee. Your favourite employee,
{Enter Your Name Here} ---------- OK… I took a page from the PDC pre-conference website as inspiration for this – but TechDays is a seriously different event from anything we have done before. This ‘aint your marketing manager tour - it really is a TechEd of the North – and we’re bringing it to 7 cities in Canada. TechDays is not a point in time – it’s part of a larger conversation and process that we’re putting together this year to seriously help you out developing the skills you need to succeed in you job. The best discount around (Early Bird Pricing) ends on October 15th – 50% off the door price. IT Pro Team Blog | IT Managers Blog | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn My Shared Bookmarks
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 Between grade 8 and 9 Tony Toews took a free two week course on programming given to local high school students at the local community college. He was hooked. He is a self employed database developer and has been designing and creating business solutions for almost thirty years. He first worked with punched cards but fortunately missed the era of paper tape. Access 1.0 came out in 1992 and he’s been greatly enjoying working in it ever since. Tony has been active in online communities since 1987 with an 80286 running DOS and a 2400 bps modem. Microsoft first recognized Tony as an MVP in 1999.
What does being an MVP mean to you? This is a tough one. Even if there wasn’t an MVP program I’d still be posting newsgroup answers, posting blog entries and working on my website. It’s very nice to be recognized but practically it hasn’t made a lot of difference in the real world. If you could ask Steve Ballmer one question about Microsoft, what would it be? I’ve already asked Bill Gates about keeping NNTP/newsgroup support so that’s good enough for me. Besides I’ve sent Steve Ballmer several emails and have received either a very prompt reply or a long detailed response from a VP responsible for that product. What do you think the best software ever written was? Windows. I like Access obviously. But Windows is a massive project. I’m amazed it works as well as it does. An unsung significant part of that though is the Error Reporting and Windows/Microsoft Update. When I first had Windows XP installed on my last laptop I was getting the occasional Blue Screen of Death on boot up. Then I suddenly realized that I hadn’t been getting those for quite a while. I can only assume a service pack or driver update solved the problem. If you were the manager of Access, what would you change? I spend most of my time in VBA so I’d make the VBA IDE more efficient for hard core developer types like me. I look at some of the screen shots of the features in Visual Studio and other IDEs with a certain amount of envy. What are the best features/improvements of Access? Which version? <smile> Access works and works well. It allows me to give my clients good solutions. That’s the best feature. I haven’t used Access 2007 a lot yet as my clients are still using Access 2003. What was the last book you read? Yesterday or last week? I read a lot of books. Non fiction – The Unthinkable - Who Survives When Disaster Strikes—And Why by Amanda Ripley. Fiction - my sister in Sri Lanka introduced me to Jim Butcher so I’m reading Storm Front. What music CD do you recommend? I love Gregorian monk chants. Any folk music, classical, some opera or old time country is also good. Oh, what specific music CD? Umm, ok - Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. What makes you a great MVP? I feel guilty when there is a tough question in the newsgroups that isn’t answered and for which I don’t have an answer. And I feel I should be helping them. What is in your computer bag? Laughs. The most important thing is a small 2 cell AA flashlight which will get me out of a dark building if the power goes out. Why, yes I am a paranoid pessimist. The rest of the stuff is divided into three categories. MVP products received as part of the award gift, Microsoft products and other. The bag is a Swiss Army backpack with the MVP logo on it. Inside are a very nice zipped leather folder and a leather CD case both with the MVP logo on them. Also is a MP3 player with the MVP logo on it. An MVP logoed USB flash drive. MS Optical mouse and MS fingerprint reader. (I love the MS fingerprint reader as I can log into websites using my fingerprint.) Other includes a small mouse pad, spare batteries for the MP3 player and a keyboard for my Palm. What is the best thing that has happened since you have become an MVP? Going to the MVP summits and meeting the folks in the Access product group and especially my fellow MVPs. I’ve gotten to know my fellow MVPs over the years in the newsgroups and it’s great to see them in person. Larry Linson and I first met on Fidonet in about 1993 or 1994 in an Access echo (equivalent to a newsgroup or forum.) It was a pleasure to meet him in person at a recent summit after about twelve years of electronically running across each other. What is your motto? “It’s better to ask forgiveness than permission.” R. Adm Grace Hopper. I was privileged to hear her speak in the 1980s on the topic of nanoseconds. Who is your hero? John Isaak. A long time manager in my twenties while I was learning computer, human, and client relationship skills. And who helped me deal with my father’s illness at the time. What does success mean to you? Tough to say. Enjoy myself doing what I love doing for a living. This is one of those nebulous questions that the beauty queens manage to flub up so I’m not sure I want to think about this one too much. 
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Bonjours. Juste une petite note pour vous informer de la mise en place du site www.techdays.ca en français. Eh oui. Le site en maintenant disponible en français. Notre plan original devais comprendre les deux langues disponible en même temps, mais la traduction et d’autre facteur ont repousse la mise en place du site français. Pour Tech-Days 08 a Montréal, la conférence sera bilingue. C'est-à-dire, les présentateurs ont le choix de présenter dans la langue qu’ils désirent. Donc, pour les présentations anglaises, vous aurez accès a un service de traduction simultané et nous fournirons les diapositives française a la porte de chaque session. Si vous n’avez toujours pas fait votre inscription, n’attendez pas, visitez le site www.techdays.ca et joignez-vous à nous. Ce sera un événement mémorable ou vous pourrez apprendre, faire des connections avec des collègues et avoir accès a des expert qui pourront répondre a tous vos questions. Au plaisir de vous voir a Montréal. A bientôt.  
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Wow! I must say the biggest challenge I thought I was going to have was with finding speakers for the TechDays Virtualization track. Well I still had a challenge with speakers it was selecting from the huge list of great speakers I had ask to participate! Not a bad problem to have if you are in my position :) So who do we have lined up? Me, Rodney! Yes I will be delivering a few sessions at TechDays in all cities across Canada, flame shoes and all. I’ll be handling the Managing Physical and Virtual Machines with Virtual Machine Manager 2008 and the Transitioning to a Virtual Environment with Hyper-V sessions in all seven cities (my Aeroplan card is loving that!) In Toronto I have Brian Bourne, the president of CMS Consulting, TASK and SecTor, delivering the Security In a Virtual World – How to Lockdown Your Virtual Environments session and Brad Bird (an MCT from Ottawa) will be handling that session in Montreal and Ottawa. Also from CMS Consulting is Kath McBride, who will be delivering the two Application Virtualization sessions in Toronto. My good friend Dan Nerenberg (also an MCT and an MVP) from www.thelazyadmin.com will be taking care of the app-v sessions in Montreal. I’ve also snagged Cameron McKay, who you’ve seen before on this blog, to deliver the Planning Your Physical to Virtual Migration with MAP Toolkit session in Toronto. He is undergoing a rather large Hyper-V deployment and has a lot of real world experience to share. Last but not least, Bill Durham, from Dell’s virtualization team, will be delivering the branch office virtualization sessions across Canada as well as the MAP session in a few cities including Montreal. I’ve got speakers lined up for the rest of the cities as well and you’ll hear more about them later. 
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 Wow! 27 days before the start of Tech-Days 08. And the Infrastructure track is coming along great. Across the country we will have a team of great professionals presenting and passing on the knowledge and the passion they have for their respective specialty. I’m really looking forward to it. The kick-off in Toronto will be highlighted by such professionals as, Mitch Garvis, Marcelo Tamaki from CMS Consulting, Scott Stubberfield from MCS, and Kim Frank from CTE Solutions to name a few. These guys are great. And I’m convinced that you’ll all learn new and exciting ways to leverage technology to further your careers, and increase the efficiencies of your respective work loads. Mitch will guide us through the best practices in deploying and managing EBS (Essential Business Server), Scott, as a follow up to his presentations during the Unified Communication Launch, will cover how capacity planning is critical to the success of an OCS deployment, and show you how to leverage the available planning tool to increase the effectiveness of your deployments. Marcelo will dive into high availability and how Windows 2008 Clustering is simplified and streamlined to allow greater flexibility and higher availability. Kim for his session will take an IT Pro view of managing web applications and migrating them to IIS7. He’ll take you through real life scenarios and provide some great guidance for simplified migration, management and deployment of web applications across your web farms. This is going to be a great Tech-Days Kick-off. The other 6 cities will be just as riveting. The speaker lists are not yet finalized but I’ll be sure to keep you updated regularly. Actually, I will post the Montreal line up this Friday. In the mean time, if you have not yet registered for Tech-Days, or want to check out the sessions and abstracts for the Infrastructure track or the other 4 Track, check out http://www.techdays.ca for all the info and registration details. I can’t express to you how excited I am about this. You could even say that I’m “Super Exited”!! It will a great occasion to connect with your peers, exchange information, make contacts and learn new things. Hey! Because there is always more to learn, make sure to be at Microsoft Tech·Days Canada 2008: The technology training conference for Canadian IT Professionals and Developers Looking forward to see you there Cheers! 
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_3.jpg "SecTor2008_150x200(black)") Well this should be fun. I’ve often shared my opinion that in order to secure your network you need to know what you are securing it from and how attackers might gain entry. Over the years I’ve tried my best to keep up with things but wireless security has been one area that I haven’t had a lot of focus on. That’s gonna change on Monday as I attend some hands on wireless security training at SecTor.
Wireless networks are continually growing in our modern world and society, from private home networks to coffee shops. This 1 day course aims to demystify wireless network security and inform attendees on how to improve wireless LAN security and Bluetooth security through theory and practical examples on live wireless networks. Attendees will first obtain detailed theoretical analysis of different wireless security schema's (i.e. Theory), thereafter have hands on experience in how the attacks are performed (i.e. Practical). Attendees will also be issued with challenges in the form of wireless hacking Dino Covotsos, who is delivering the training, is the Founder and Managing Director of Telspace Systems, a South African IT security firm which started business in 2002. He has spoken around the world (including SecTor 2007) on wireless and Bluetooth security. His session at SecTor last year got me to turn off Bluetooth on all my devices (since I don’t use it anyway) as I saw how easy it was to gain access to devices via Bluetooth and I know quite a few people who have had their eyes opened by the topics Dino covers. There are still spots open in this session and the other training sessions so if you want to get in and get the skills you need to lock things down and ensure they are protected correctly, sign up today! 
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