Redmond columnist Greg Shields use to be a full-time ITer. Before Redmond was Redmond magazine, it was called Microsoft Certified Professional. We had a contest for a guest editor and Greggo won. That launched a great second career for him that combined IT, writing, speaking and consulting.
In his latest column, Greg talks about the changing world of the Windows Admin. In many shops there is a gulf between IT and development. IT can code worth a lick and developers couldn't read a routing table if you paid them.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 01/14/20131 comments
Part of the rise of SharePoint is because Microsoft put all its collaboration/groupware (remember that word?) muscle behind the product (instead of dividing its attention between products like Groove and Exchange public folders).
Now Microsoft is up to SharePoint 2013, aimed at on-premises and the cloud. Here a few highlights, but we have a deeper 3,052 word analysis, found here:
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Posted by Doug Barney on 01/14/20130 comments
I talk a lot about patching. Every month I give a preview of Patch Tuesday to get you all pumped to plug your systems.
But there is another side to patching, the tools used to get the job done. Microsoft has its own solutions such as WSUS. But in patching, as in nearly every other area, third parties push the envelope, invent the future and have the best answers.
SolarWinds is one of those third parties. Recently Redmond took a close look at SolarWinds Patch Manager.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 01/11/20130 comments
Every time Microsoft changes a name for no apparent reason (product managers have to do something) I give the company a good, sound beating.
This all starts with code names, which are usually pretty good. That almost always gets tossed for the first real name. After a while the company gets antsy and changes the first real name to the second real name. Think of all the names Windows has gone through. It's been based on versions like Windows 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0. Years like Windows 95, 98 and 2000. Random words and letters such as XP, Me and Vista. And back to numbers, as in 7 and 8.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 01/11/20137 comments
Google is decommissioning old products, but for some reason it seems almost all of these retirements relate to Microsoft. Google Apps, for instance, is bailing on support of older versions of IE.
And more recently Google decided to stop supporting ActiveSync for Exchange (could the push to make all things Gmail have anything to do with it?).
Google Sync, which keeps Gmail, Google Contacts and Calendar all up to date, relies in part on ActiveSync. This is a benefit to Microsoft users, especially mobile folks, and their ability to keep Google and Microsoft-based item in line.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 01/09/20136 comments
Internet Explorer has always been ridiculed by computer know-it-alls for its entire existence. Much of this was due to security problems, and many of those were due to IE long being the dominant, default browser on Windows machines.
These days IE is less dominant, but actually a far better browser. I use Firefox more out of habit than preference.
Microsoft, in a rare show of deprecation, makes fun of itself and IE in a new promo video funnily found here.
Posted by Doug Barney on 01/09/20132 comments
The lure of Google Apps used to be its price: nada. Now if you are a business user, that price is no longer nada, but $50 per person per year. And for government workers it is the same half a hundred, revenue Google desperately needs to pay its 3.2 percent tax bill. Individuals can still get the apps free.
I have lots of bones to pick with Google but this isn't one them. The company doesn't have to give away this software indefinitely.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 01/09/20138 comments
The arrogance that is Google knows no bounds. That is because there are barely any consequences for what it does or what its executives say. It is amazing that Google can talk about doing no evil and not get laughed out of the room.
Here is a rundown on recent news: Google was found to be sheltering billions in profits in Bermuda (among other shelters), allowing it to pay a paltry 3.2 percent in corporate tax. Now let's not forget these profits come from co-opting the content of others -- Google, unlike Yahoo and AOL, produces no content whatsoever.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 01/07/201316 comments
Steve Sinofsky, who recently left Microsoft after he lead the launch of Windows 8, is now a professor at the Harvard Business School.
So will Sinofsky make a good prof? I say yes. A few years ago he wrote a book, "One Strategy" with a co-author -- a book the publisher was kind enough to send me. The book is all about business organization. If I read the free book I'd tell you more.
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Posted by Doug Barney on 01/07/20132 comments
Exchange 2010 SP2 users got a new rollup this week, but the way these are done has left some IT pros nonplussed. The problem is these fixes seem to go back and forth and aren't released in a cohesive manner.
In the summer of last year there was another rollup that had problems, problems that weren't fixed in the next update.
This rollup, Update Rollup 5 v2 for Exchange 2010 SP2, is really a big bunch of patches. While IT always likes a good fix, they don't always like how they're delivered, such as this blogger: "I for one find the product team's decision to fix security vulnerabilities only in Update Rollups completely unacceptable and at odds with many other products in the Microsoft product line," the blogger wrote as reported in Kurt Mackie's news piece. "A security vulnerability should be addressed by a small hotfix that addresses the vulnerability rather than part of a much wider rollup which includes additional functionality and a much broader change to the code base. For those in corporate environments, testing a large rollup is at odds with security patching."
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Posted by Doug Barney on 12/19/20121 comments
I'm looking to do an in-depth article about Windows Phone 8 and am looking for real customer feedback. If you bought one of these puppies let me know at [email protected] and I'll be in touch.
Posted by Doug Barney on 12/19/20121 comments