I want to share with the blogosphere some of the great consequences about writing a geeky blog. A few months ago, StarWind started a contest for the best article of the year regarding their iSCSI software. The prize was nothing else than an iPad 2, and I won with this article :)

There were some issues in receiving the article because some laws here in Argentina prohibit the importation of these products, but we’ve managed to get the iPad locally instead of shipping it and finally I have it in my hands.

Pretty cool stuff, indeed :)

Even though most of us writing technological blogs we never look to these contests or prizes as an objective, it is indeed motivating when you find in your path some acknowledgments.

Thank you StarWind!

As a celebration since my App-V Book: Getting Started with Microsoft Application Virtualization 4.6 has just been published, I want to give away a free paperback version among my blog readers.

Here’s the deal:

• All you need to do is email me at augusto@augustoalvarez.com.ar with the subject: “App-V Book”.
• Include in the email body your full name plus the address where you would like for us to send the copy.
• I’ll close up the contest on February 25. All the emails sent until that date will be included in the election, which will be completely random.
• I’ll notify the winner in the following days and we’ll ship a free copy of “Getting Started with Application Virtualization 4.6”.

For more information about the book and the free chapter available for download, check this last post of mine.

To avoid any problems, here are some disclaimers:

• Only one email by person will be included. Do not use different mail accounts to participate several times.
• Emails that don’t include person’s full name and address will not be considered valid.
• We’ll cover the expenses regarding shipment but we are not responsible for extra fees or taxes other countries may include in the package.

Remember that the book is available in the following stores: Packt Publishing; Amazon.com; Amazon.co.uk and Lehmans.

Good luck!

Microsoft Press introduced a great technique to get more readers: Giving away free books, as simple as that. And this time with a great proposal: Introducing Windows Server 2008 R2.

Even though it is a short book (200 pages) you’ll see that there are several topics that you might be interested in. Here are the chapters involved:

• Chapter 1    What’s New in Windows Server R2
• Chapter 2    Installation and Configuration: Adding R2 to Your World
• Chapter 3    Hyper-V: Scaling and Migrating Virtual Machines
• Chapter 4    Remote Desktop Services and VDI: Centralizing Desktop and Application Management
• Chapter 5    Active Directory: Improving and Automating Identity and Access   
  Chapter 6    The File Services Role
• Chapter 7    IIS 7.5: Improving the Web Application Platform
• Chapter 8    DirectAccess and Network Policy Server
• Chapter 9    Other Features and Enhancements

You will find several information about important improvements introduced in this version, like: Hyper-V R2 (Live Migration and storage hot add feature); VDI; IIS 7.5; BranchCache and DirectAccess.

Enjoy!

Fresh and free new book available from Microsoft Press and Microsoft TechNet! Deploying Windows 7: Essential Guidance.

This book contains ten chapters from Windows 7 Resource Kit, so if you ever read one of these Resource Kits, you would know that the content it is very complete and interesting. Some of the topics discussed in this free book:

• Planning Deployment
• Testing Application Compatibility
• Developing Disk Images
• Migrating User State Data
• Deploying Applications
• Volume Activation
• Using Windows Deployment Services (WDS)
• Using Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT)

I know, I know, I was missing the free e-books offers from Microsoft too.

Here’s a little bonus: Microsoft also published as a free download the Chapter 23 of the Windows 7 Resource Kit, “Supporting Users Using Remote Assistance”.

To review some of my posts about deploying Windows 7, check this category:

http://blog.augustoalvarez.com.ar/category/microsoft-deployment-toolkit-mdt/

Cheers!

Continuing with their 25th Anniversary Microsoft Press prepared for us their final release for free E-Books (yes, these two and you won’t be getting this exciting offers anymore):

“Office Communications Server 2007 R2: Resource Kit”

If you are not very familiar with the communications suite, here’s a short topic review that is included in almost 900 pages:

• Overview and server roles
• Key deployment scenarios: VoIP, basic IM, conferencing, voice mail, etc.
• Planning and Deployment
• General administration and monitoring
• Backup and restore
• Troubleshooting.

And as for previous released, the offer also includes the developers e-book:

“Programming for Unified Communications with Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2”

Remember that these downloads are available for a short period of time.

Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Remember that these books are available as a free download for a limited period of time. 

Microsoft Press released two new e-books to continue celebrating their 25th anniversary:

Windows Server 2008 Terminal Services Resource Kit

On this book you’ll find detailed information about what’s new in Windows Server 2008 regarding Terminal Services and common scenarios to use a Terminal Services ecosystem.

As an always requested topic regarding to Terminal Services, you’ll see how the applications publications works within these environments, using Terminal Services RemoteApps (TS RemoteApps).

Some of the topics:

• Planning and installing Terminal Server environment.
• Creating and maintaining user work environment.
• Installing and Publishing Applications.
• Terminal Services ecosystem management.

Also, on the devs side again, you can find this another “best practices” book:

“The Practical Guide to Defect Prevention”. Techniques to meet the demand for more reliable software.

Enjoy and don’t forget to share the links.

Cheers!

Windows Small Business Server 2008 Administrator’s Companion

But you should know that this book is going to be available for download for a short period of time: April 15 to April 22. So you better hurry up and get yourself a copy!

The SBS platform that was introduced with Windows Server 2003 is oriented to small-medium organizations (between 5 and 75 computers) and gives you all the possibilities and solutions that you may need to use on your organization within a single server: Active Directory, Exchange Server, Internet Information Services (IIS), Sharepoint, SQL, Terminal Services, etc. Avoiding, this way, to consider the implementation of several servers and their hardware and licensing costs.

Also, on the devs side, you can find this book also available:

Microsoft® Visual Basic® 2008 Express Edition: Build a Program Now!

Enjoy!

Windows Vista Resource Kit, 2nd Edition

On this book you’ll find:

• Windows Vista Deployment
• Desktop Management
• Desktop Maintenance
• All you need to know about Networking on Windows Vista
• Troubleshooting

It’s quite interesting actually, on this book you’ll find several topics that can be quite useful as an IT Pro or a common user: Regarding to Vista Deployment you can find everything you need to know about deployments using Windows Deployment Services (WDS) or Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT), preparing Windows PE boot environment, etc.

Also take a look at the networking section that will explain the improvements that were made on this OS (firewall, IPSec, etc); troubleshooting hardware, devices and common errors.

Remember that these free eBooks will be available for a short period of time, so don’t waste any more time and get it!

Adding now another free eBook: Introducing Microsoft SQL Server 2008.

Enjoy!

Cheers

Windows Server 2008 Server Core Administrator’s Pocket Consultant

On this book you’ll find:

• Introduction to Server Core
• Deploying Server Core
• Initial Configurations
• Installing Roles and Features
• Local and Remote Management
• Detailed description of all roles available:
  • Active Directory and DNS
  • Hyper-V
  • DHCP
  • File and Print Services
  • Web Server
  • Others
• Maintaining Server Core

Did you give Windows Server Core a chance already? On the obvious security reasons that you can find to install it; you’ll see other benefits like having a small footprint operating system, licensing price, great performance to take advantage all the features on the mentioned roles, including Hyper-V clustering.

You can start on this book to get a nice introduction and to know all the possibilities with Server Core.

And again, on the devs side (but it is also quite useful for IT guys) you’ll find a SQL Server 2005 book:

SQL Server 2005 Integration Services Step-by-Step

For another free eBook (“Virtualization Solutions”) still available, click here.

Enjoy!

Cheers!

You can still access the “Virtualization Solutions” free eBook from MS Press on this link.

I’ll keep you updated whenever this offers appears!

More very interesting reading MS Press books available for free.

On the IT side, you can find "Understanding IPv6". Great book to get to know this (still not commonly used) networking and security protocol.

• IPv6 Protocol for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008
• IPv6 addressing and headers
• Neighbor Discovery
• Address Autoconfiguration
• IPv6 name resolution
• ISATAP
• Teredo
• Deploying IPv6
• Setting up a lab with IPv6

On the devs side, "Best Practices Writing Secure Code for Windows Vista".

Enjoy.

Cheers!

Well this is for sure a must reading book for you. And the best thing, it’s here for free! You can get the PDF (~14mb) at this link (link updated):

“Virtualization Solutions from the Desktop to the Datacenter”

Chapter 1: Microsoft’s Virtualization Solution
Introduction to the virtualization world, benefits and how to implement it.

Chapter 2: Server Virtualization – Hyper-V
Start to know about the hyper visor released by Microsoft from Windows Server 2008 platform. How it works, benefits and different scenarios.

Chapter 3: Managing Virtualization – VMM 2008
The latest centralized platform from System Center, Virtual Machine Manager 2008. Where you can manage different type of servers: Virtual Server, VMWare and Hyper-V.

Chapter 4: Application Virtualization – App-V
How App-V works (former known as SoftGrid) and how it can be delivered to users.

Chapter 5: Presentation Virtualization – Terminal Services
How Terminal Services complements the different virtualization solutions and their benefits.

Chapter 6: Desktop Virtualization – MED-V and VDI
Explaining Microsoft Enterprise Desktop Virtualization (MED-V) and Microsoft Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI).

Chapter 7: User State Virtualization
Complementing Romaing Profiles, Folder Redirection, Offline Files, Group Policies with virtualization and how to implement it on an organization.

Chapter 8: Building a Virtualization Infrastructure
Getting to know Microsoft Virtualtion Solutions Accelerators, Microsoft System Center and Virtualization Licensing.

Enjoy it!

Cheers

Sounds like a discuss topic isn’t? This “twittering world” is something that got me thinking: why it does exist and why so many people us it?. I’m sure that can be a lot of answers about it, from twitter lovers and twitter haters.

I’m pretty sure that can be hundreds of examples where people only twitters for no reason other that to twitter (and to get other people’s attention). But what about if it’s more than that? What about if you also want to share experiences, knowledge, information? It would take something like a geek twitter to do that… but be certain that there are million of those from whom you can learn a lot of things.

And what about if you it’s not a geek twitter? I think this is still a great social experiment where you can learn a lot of things, like start to knowing other persons on their normal (not in a geek way) life. I’m a believer that smallest and simplest aspects on people’s life is what defines a person. Why not twitter can be a tiny way to understand all that?.

Don’t want to make a whole deal of philosophical discussion about it; so I want to share with you my experience and some of the people that I usually follow:

My user: @augustoalvarez
Angel “Java” Lopez: @ajlopez
Johnny Halife: @johnnyhalife
Martin Salias: @martinsalias
Paulo Arancibia: @parancibia
Gabriel Szlechtman: @gabrielsz
Ezequiel Morito: @ezequielm
Federico Boerr: @federicoboerr
Miguel Saez: @masaez
Matias Woloski: @woloski
Ezequiel Jadib: @ejadib
Juan Manuel Moyano: @jmmoyano
Edgardo Rossetto: @erossetto
Christian Linacre: @linacre
Alejandro Ponicke (not so much a twitter fan so far): @ponicke

Oh and if you ask, twhirl is my preferred twittering tool

Cheers everyone!

On your desktop holding CTRL key and scrolling your mousewheel you can set at your placer the icons size.

This one also works on the Explorer window when you are navigating any hard drive or folder.

Enjoy :)

Cheers

What if I tell you that you can manage all the connections that you want in your Internet Explorer? And if you’re using Mozilla Firefox or IE7 all the connections can be in you different tabs? Probably have the same functionality as this one, but it’s always good to know the option is there right?.

This is really simple and easy. Works with Windows Server 2003 and XP:

Using “Add or Remove Programs”, select “Add/Remove Components” and in “Application Server” select “Details”. You will find another list and in “Internet Information Services” select “Details” again and check “Remote Desktop Web Connection”.

When the installation starts you’ll be prompted to insert the Windows Server 2003 CD. After the installation is complete you are ready to use your Remote Desktop Connection in the default direction established in IIS: http://localhost/tsweb/

As a best practice, is always recommended that you set your permissions in IIS to not allow anonymous authentication, any other will be fine; and use HTTPS for the communication.

Cheers!!