My Thoughts On IT…

The System Center group has been busy with building new versions.  They have seven new versions of products ready for you to download and test. Some are in Beta and some are in Release Candidate (RC) stages of development. The are all marching down the path to be released in the first half of next year.

System Center 2012

• AppController – Beta
• Configuration Manager RC1
• Data Protection Manager 2012 Beta
• Operations Manager 2012 Beta
• Service Manager 2012 Beta
• System Center Orchestrator RC
• Virtual Machine Manager RC

Here is the Link to download all this goodness:
http://www.microsoft.com/click/services/Redirect2.ashx?CR_CC=200069528

Reminder: 30 Days of Cloud… Todays post is buy John Weston. He writes about the hybrid cloud.
http://blogs.technet.com/b/jweston/archive/2011/11/02/what-is-hybrid-cloud.aspx

I really like the ASUS Zenbook and if I come across an extra thousand dollars I am going to buy one. Anadtech did purchase one and then tore it apart to look at the insides. They did a nice post on the dissection. I won’t be doing this to mine, if I get it, so you might want to take a look at their post.

Take a look at their tear down here:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4984/asus-zenbook-ux21-teardown

Welcome to Day 1 of 30 days of the Cloud on Your Terms!

My regional  team is posting an article a day for the next 30 days on this mysterious “cloud”.  We are going to be covering everything from from public to private to hybrid clouds. You are going to hear about it all from a technical perspective. There will be screencasts, screenshots, and stories from the trenches. We may even toss a tip or two on how to pass a certification exam. So come back and check our blogs over the next month for some great information on the cloud.

My Regional Team consists of:

• (Me) Brian Lewis – http://MyThoughtsOnIT.com
• John Weston – http://blogs.technet.com/b/jweston/
• Kevin Remde – http://blogs.technet.com/b/kevinremde/
• Matt Hester – http://blogs.technet.com/b/matthewms/

The first session is on Matt’s Blog here: http://blogs.technet.com/b/matthewms/archive/2011/11/01/the-cloud-on-your-terms-part-1-of-30-what-cloud-is-right-for-you.aspx

A Guide to all posts can be found here: http://mythoughtsonit.com/?page_id=763

This is so cool. I think these videos have only been around since June 2011. The video below shows this phenomenon. It looks like magic. It is a disk that when put near a magnet gets locked into place by the magnetic lines. It appears to be floating above the magnet but if you move the magnet it stays locked in the exact position in comparison to the magnet. I would like to see what happens with an electro magnet if I change the magnetic field by upping to voltage just a little. Would it move the object or just lock it into position harder?

This video and information was published by the Superconductivity Group School of Physics and Astronomy at Tel Aviv University. In these video they demonstrate quantum locking in action. You can see what they have published about it on this website that they set up at:
http://www.quantumlevitation.com/levitation/The_physics.html

Quantum Levitation

The disk in the video below is a sapphire wafer coated with an ultrathin layer of yttrium barium copper oxide. It is is cooled to below negative 185 degrees Celsius by putting it in liquid nitrogen. At that temperature the material becomes superconductive. The Meissner effect states that super conductors expel all magnetic lines of flux. The thin wafer in the video below allows some lines of flux to pass through it and  that makes it hold in place.

This is so cool. I think these videos have only been around since June 2011. The video below shows this phenomenon. It looks like magic. It is a disk that when put near a magnet gets locked into place by the magnetic lines. It appears to be floating above the magnet but if you move the magnet it stays locked in the exact position in comparison to the magnet. I would like to see what happens with an electro magnet if I change the magnetic field by upping to voltage just a little. Would it move the object or just lock it into position harder?

This video and information was published by the Superconductivity Group School of Physics and Astronomy at Tel Aviv University. In these video they demonstrate quantum locking in action. You can see what they have published about it on this website that they set up at:
http://www.quantumlevitation.com/levitation/The_physics.html

Quantum Levitation

The disk in the video below is a sapphire wafer coated with an ultrathin layer of yttrium barium copper oxide. It is is cooled to below negative 185 degrees Celsius by putting it in liquid nitrogen. At that temperature the material becomes superconductive. The Meissner effect states that super conductors expel all magnetic lines of flux. The thin wafer in the video below allows some lines of flux to pass through it and  that makes it hold in place.

The latest volume of the Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIR) (volume 11) is now available. The report offers a large collection of data and insights on the threat landscape, most of which are dedicated to providing deep dive data on the threat landscape in more than 100 countries and regions around the world.

*New* in this edition of the SIR are contributions from Microsoft Technical Fellow Mark Russinovich on advanced malware cleaning techniques for IT professionals. This section of the report will help you understand how malware operates, and offers a rudimentary roadmap for cleaning infected computers manually for those IT professionals looking to learn this art.

You can get a copy of the Security Report here:
http://www.microsoft.com/security/sir/default.aspx

In terms of new malware infection data, newer operating systems and service packs continue to have lower malware infection rates than older software. Important Note: If you are still running Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), or know someone that is, it’s time to install Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3). Support for Windows XP Service Pack 2 ended on July 13, 2010, which means that security updates are no longer being offered for this platform.

Check out this computer interaction with real objects. It is not ready for prime time yet but think about the possibilities for the future.

HoloDesk is a novel interactive system combining an optical see through display and Kinect camera to create the illusion that users are directly interacting with 3D graphics. A virtual image of a 3D scene is rendered through a half silvered mirror and spatially aligned with the real-world for the viewer. Users easily reach into an interaction volume displaying the virtual image. This allows the user to literally get their hands into the virtual display. A novel real-time algorithm for representing hands and other physical objects, which are sensed by the Kinect inside this volume, allows physically realistic interaction between real and virtual 3D objects.

 

Check out this computer interaction with real objects. It is not ready for prime time yet but think about the possibilities for the future.

HoloDesk is a novel interactive system combining an optical see through display and Kinect camera to create the illusion that users are directly interacting with 3D graphics. A virtual image of a 3D scene is rendered through a half silvered mirror and spatially aligned with the real-world for the viewer. Users easily reach into an interaction volume displaying the virtual image. This allows the user to literally get their hands into the virtual display. A novel real-time algorithm for representing hands and other physical objects, which are sensed by the Kinect inside this volume, allows physically realistic interaction between real and virtual 3D objects.

 

The Solution Accelerators team just announced the release of Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit 6.5 Beta. This new version of the MAP toolkit has all of the goodness of the earlier versions with new added features.

The way MAP works is it inventories your network and looks at what you have. It then uses its “intelligence” to help you understand what it would take to accomplish one or the IT projects below:

• Migration to Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Microsoft Office 2010
• Migration to Windows 7 compatible versions of Internet Explorer
• * Improved: Migration to cloud-based services: Windows Azure, SQL Azure, Office 365
• * Improved: Private cloud with Hyper-V Cloud Fast Track
• Server virtualization with Hyper-V
• SQL Server consolidation and migration to SQL Server 2008 R2
• * Improved: Assessment of current software usage and client access history for simplified software asset management
• PC security assessment and migration to Microsoft Forefront Client Security
• * New: Discovery of active Windows^® devices
• * New: Software Usage Tracking for Forefront^® Endpoint Protection (FEP)
• * New: Discovery of Oracle instances on Itanium-based servers with HP-UX to assist in the planning of migration to SQL Server^®.

Lastly map creates reports on this information in a clean fashion that can be used by consultants or IT staff to describe what is necessary for a successful project. The reports are great to inform and educate upper management on your projects as well as to plan the actual work needed for success.

To get the code – Join the MAP 6.5 Beta: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=219168

More info on MAP 6.5:  https://connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?SiteID=297

In the past I received a ton of free computer related magazines. I got rid of most of them because now I get most of my information on line. I have kept my subscription to Information week because I have found it a good, informative, and balanced source on Information Technology.

Last time I posted this offer I received a comment that the real trick is how to get them to stop sending renewal reminders to your email. Haha. So true. It seems like every 6 months they ask you to renew your free subscription. That is the only downside I have found to this publication.

Here is the email I received if you are interested in signing up:

FORWARD THIS EMAIL AND LET A COLLEAGUE SIGN UP FOR FREE!

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