OWSUG.ca

May 2010 - Posts

• IT GrandPrix–Team Red–Helping out NetHope

  I wanted to help out my friend Dan Nerenberg in Montreal with something he’s involved with as part of Microsoft Learning and TechEd NorthAmerica. He’s part of a contest that has four teams of certified professionals competing with each other by helping charities and not for profits in multiple cities across the US en route to TechEd in NewOrleans. You can help him by joining the “Team Red” pit crew at www.itgrandprix.com and selecting “Join The Race” to sign in and associate your Live ID with the team. It’s simple to do, fun to follow the exploits of the team and also do something good for yourself (flex some of that certified learning / exams / helping others muscle) as well as others. If they win the points score / challenges (YOU plan an active online role in the points area) $10,000 will get donated to Team Red’s charity of choice – NetHope – an organization that provides IT services and collaboration amongst international aid organizations.  Here’s Dan to explain a bit more how YOU can participate in the points challenge. IT Pro Team Blog | IT Managers Blog |Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn ---------- Hello Everyone, For those who don’t already know me my name is Daniel Nerenberg, I’m an MCT, MCITP and an MVP for the past 4 years. I am the Team Leader for the Red Team in the IT Grand Prix.  This is a competition being put on to raise awareness of Microsoft Learning, Microsoft training opportunities, and Certification. Starting on May 31st My team will be racing throughout the US to help local Charities solve their IT problems. The winning team gets to donate 10 000$ US to the charity of their choice. Our team is racing for the charity NetHope. They work all over the world to help aid groups leverage technology on the ground better. This could include bringing in technical people to build network infrastructure, or providing training to locals so that they can continue to build and support technology that solves all sorts of problems. This race has 2 components. We will be racing on the ground in each city. We will also have online challenges. That’s where you come in. If you could register as a member of the Red Team’s virtual Pit crew on the website www.itgrandprix.com and help us out with some of the online challenges our team would really appreciate it!   Once you’re registered here’s how you can help! Let your followers know all about the IT Grand Prix, ask them to sign up for the RED team!   How do you help the team GET POINT? Complete online challenges!! You can start right now: Challenge: Take a certification exam Criteria: The team with the most MCP exams taken by their pit crew between May 1 and June 4, 2010 wins the challenge. Action: Register with Prometric and take your exam by June 4, 2010. No other action required. Challenge: Recruit friends and colleagues to join your pit crew Criteria: Each certification held by each new pit crew member (though May 21, 2010) is worth points to your team. 1 point MCDST, MCSA, MCAD 2 points MCSE, MCSD, MCDBA, MCTS 3 points MCITP, MCPD 4 points MCM, MCA Action: Recruit your friends and colleagues to join your pit crew by May 21, 2010 Challenge: Participate in Born to Learn Discussion Forums Criteria: In the IT Grand Prix forum, your ground team will moderate discussion threads. Participate in those discussions and the team with the most relevant posts wins the challenge. Action: Visit the ITGP forum, find your team's threads ( your team color will be in the title), and participate in the discussion. Challenge: Did you know you can track the number of times your VBC is viewed? Create and promote your Virtual Business Card to win this challenge. Criteria: The team with the most cumulative views of their pit crew's Virtual Business Cards wins. Action: Create your VBC and share it. Make sure you have the VBC linked from our servers (image versions do not count)! Challenge: Take the Are You Certifiable Challenge Criteria: Play the Windows 7 track and the team with the highest cumulative score will win. Action: Play Are You Certifiable, (make sure you login with the same Live ID you used to register for IT Grand Prix), and select the Windows 7 track. Challenge: Update your newsletter subscription preferences Criteria: We recently added the ability for you to choose how you want to receive your MCP or MCT newsletter: monthly, weekly, or even daily. The team with the most people who have updated or confirmed their subscription preferences wins. That's it! Action: Update or confirm your subscription preferences. Update your MCP Flash newsletter preferences Update your MCT Flash newsletter preferences   We also have a Facebook fan page where we will update you as we move throughout the challenge you can find here:   If you want to find out more about NetHope check out www.nethope.org Thanks so much for helping out! If you have any questions about this don’t hesitate to reach out!   Daniel Nerenberg Principal Consultant InfraOp Inc MCT,MCITP,MCTS,MCSE,MCSA,MCP Microsoft MVP – App-V Twitter: @danieldcn | Blog: http://thelazyadmin.com Posted Thursday, May 20, 2010 8:10 AM from Canadian IT Professionals | 0 Comments Filed under: Guest Bloggers, Certification, Rick Claus, Announcement

• Under Construction

  Over the next week Microsoft is moving the MSDN and Technet blogs to a new and better blogging platform. All commenting will be disabled due to technical issues while migrating. Our blog will continue to publish new content throughout this time but there may be some technical glitches, so don’t panic, it’s just the platform migration. To find out more about the Microsoft blog move and some cool new features check out Sean Jenkin’s blog – Blogging about the Blog Platform. Posted Monday, May 17, 2010 1:36 PM from Canadian IT Professionals | 0 Comments

• Security Bulletins for the Regular IT Guy – Episode 16 – 5/11/2010

  Over pints Pierre Roman, Bruce Cowper and Rick Claus decided they would put together a concise and timely podcast each “Update Tuesday”. The object is to keep it simple by letting you know in plain non technical language what the updates are, what they resolve and why you should care. Have a listen directly from the embedded Silverlight player OR subscribe to the feed and download it to your iTunes / Zune software.  As always - if you have suggestions on making it better - please pass on your comments. Mail Rick directly  – rick.claus@microsoft.com Direct Download: Subscribe to the podcast: (so you don't miss an episode)   Disclaimer: This podcast was produced with the best information available to us at the time of recording. Your primary source for all things Security Bulletin related should always be the Microsoft Security Response Center blog. In Depth Webcast on this bulletin will take place: Wednesday, May 12th - 11:00 a.m. PST (UTC -8). (Registration link): Bulletins discussed for May 11th, 2010:   MS10-030 - Vulnerability in Outlook Express and Windows Mail Could Allow Remote Code Execution (978542) MS10-031 - Vulnerability in Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications Could Allow Remote Code Execution (978213) Podcast Participants: Rick Claus, Pierre Roman, and Bruce Cowper. Additional Technical Show Notes: Recorded at the Ottawa Microsoft Office at the World Exchange Plaza, 100 Queen Street. PodSafe music from PodSafe Music Network @ http://music.podshow.com/. Artist: Derek K Miller, song - “You’re the Big Sky - rock guitar instrumental” IT Pro Team Blog | IT Managers Blog |Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn Posted Tuesday, May 11, 2010 11:35 AM from Canadian IT Professionals | 0 Comments Filed under: Security, Podcast, IT Guy / IT Gal, Rick Claus, Pierre Roman, Security Bulletins Podcast

• Windows 7 Live Talk Webcast: Deployment Tips from Early Adopters

  There are a lot of webcasts, videocasts and resources available for those planning, piloting, deploying or managing Windows 7 at the Microsoft Springboard site.  There are case studies and stories of deployment success and while still relevant they are typically based around US customers and scenarios.  But we’ve got something totally Canadian coming your way! On May 27th 2010 we are inviting you to hear Fountain Tire’s IT Manager, Tobias Staley, speak with Travis Wizniuk, Compugen Senior Consultant, about the company’s experiences in tackling, and successfully resolving, their real-world Windows 7 deployment challenges. Join this one-hour panel discussion and get your questions answered about executing a successful Windows 7 pilot, building and managing a deployment project in your organization.  Fountain Tire is a nationally recognized tire dealer in Canada, Fountain Tire offers a wide range of car, truck, and trailer tires, as well as complete automotive services, for any make and model of vehicle. Today, it has over 150 stores spanning as far west as Victoria, British Columbia and as far east as Thunder Bay, Ontario. Event Title: Windows 7 Live Talk Webcast: Deployment Tips from Early Adopters - Fountain Tire Event Date: May 27, 2010 Event Start Time: 9:00 am Pacific Event End Time: 10:00 am Pacific PRESENTERS Customer: Tobias Staley, IT Manager, Fountain Tire:  Mr. Staley has been with Fountain Tire for 6 years and led the team that successfully piloted and deployed Windows 7 over 50 seats and have standardized the OS for all future deployments (650 seats) across their organization. Consultant: Travis Wizniuk, Senior Consultant, Compugen: Travis Wizniuk is a highly skilled and progressively educated Senior Network Consultant with over 10 years of experience.  Travis has acquired advanced specialized skills in systems management, which include extensive experience with the Microsoft System Center line of products as well as Microsoft’s previous generation of management products. Host: Raymond Phillips, Deployment Lead, Windows Client, Canadian Business and Marketing Organization, Microsoft:  As the Canadian Windows Deployment lead, Mr. Phillips is responsible for Windows Client deployment and adoption for the Canadian Mid-Market and Enterprise accounts. Mr. Phillips leads the business strategies and directs elements of the marketing and relevant programs to drive Windows Client adoption and evidence through and to partners and customers. Registration is now open for this event. For more information, please visit our registration page at: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=9727431 Posted Tuesday, May 04, 2010 8:48 AM from Canadian IT Professionals | 0 Comments Filed under: Webcast, Events, Your Solutions, Windows 7, Rodney Buike

• Final Wrapup Video EnergizeIT–TeamEast

  We’re back – EnergizeIT activities wrapped up last week and I finally got around to editing the final video Christian and I shot while on the road. In this one – I decided to capture what it’s like to order Tim Hortons while in Quebec as well as an impromptu wrap up commentary from John Oxley – our boss. He just happened to call while we were about 15 minutes from home to wish us well. I can honestly say – all three teams (West, East and Rover) at a lot on our plates for covering 21 cities across Canada. Looking back on it now – I believe the team realizes that the timeframe was a little too compressed. Last year we had more time over a longer window to visit each location and make more connections. This time around we were jam packed and back to back too frequently. That being said – we went to A LOT of new cities that we’ve never been to before and hopefully managed to create some new relationships with people where we’ll be able to check back in with them going forward. Our team is getting ready for some more planning activities coming up later this month and we’ve already started getting our thinking caps on. If we didn’t make it out your way this year – drop us a line at energizeit@microsoft.com and maybe we can work something out for connecting later this year or next year.  If you have any suggestions on things we could do next year – let us know!   IT Pro Team Blog | IT Managers Blog |Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn addthis_pub = 'CDNDPE'; Posted Tuesday, May 04, 2010 5:30 AM from Canadian IT Professionals | 0 Comments Filed under: EnergizeIT, Rick Claus

• Simplifying App Compat

  During the recent Deployment Deep Dive on Windows 7 Community Tour there were a few questions on how best to tackle an application compatibility problem.  There are a number of ways you can go about it from new apps, to shims to virtualization.  The other day Microsoft and ChangeBASE announced a partnership that will allow you to asses and remediate application compatibility issues with Windows 7 automatically.  You can read the announcement here but I urge you to take a look the following: Microsoft and ChangeBASE are working together to offer you a simple online solution that assesses and automatically remediates applications for Windows 7 compatibility at the press of a button. This solution uses a subset of the full AOK tool from ChangeBASE, a market leader in automated application compatibility and remediation software. AOK4SMB is an application compatibility tool developed to help small and midsize businesses to get their applications ready for Windows 7. Whether you are about to upgrade your PCs to Windows 7 Professional or already running Windows 7, this solution can help your business continue to run smoothly. You can try the tool for free until the end of July 2010 so head over to http://aok4smb.com and check it out. Posted Monday, May 03, 2010 12:09 PM from Canadian IT Professionals | 0 Comments Filed under: Windows 7, Rodney Buike, App Compat