David Mackies Blue Brain

Synergistic will sponsor my Mo again this year...

Last year we announced that Synergistic Network Solutions would match my Movember fund raising

My company Synergistic Network Solutions will match dollar for dollar funds I raise, now we do have to put a limit on it or we could find ourselves in cash flow double jeopardy. I'm not going to say how much we will tip in because I'd find it hard to get sponsors once we reach that target so try to push us up there anyway.

We will do it again this year so please help us raise money for this great cause

Movember Here again

Hi All,

During Movember (the month formerly known as November) I'll be growin a Mo. That's right I'm bringing the Mo back because I'm passionate about changing men's health and the fight against male depression and prostate cancer. Why...

• Depression affects 1 in 6 men...Most don't seek help. Untreated depression is a leading risk factor for suicide.
• Last year in Australia 18,700 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer and more than 2,900 died of prostate cancer - equivalent to the number of women who die from breast cancer annually.
• Men are far less healthy than women. The average life expectancy of males is 5 years less than females.

To sponsor my Mo please go to http://www.movember.com/au/donate, enter my registration number which is 64383 and your credit card details. Or you can sponsor me by cheque made payable to the "Movember Foundation" clearly marking the donation as being for my Registration Number: 64383. Please mail cheques to: PO Box 292, Prahran VIC 3181. All donations over $2 are tax deductible.

The money raised by Movember is donated to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and beyondblue - the national depression initiative, which will use the funds to create awareness, fund research and increase support networks for those men who suffer from prostate cancer and male depression.

For those that have supported Movember in previous years you can be very proud of the impact it has had and can check out the detail at: Fundraising Outcomes.

Movember culminates at the end of the month at the Gala Partés. These glamorous and groomed events will see Tom Selleck and Borat look-a-likes battle it out for their chance to take home the prestigious Man of Movember title. If you would like to be part of this great night you'll need to purchase a Gala Parté ticket .

Thanks for your support

David

More info is available at www.movember.com.

Movember is proudly grown by Commonwealth Bank, Holden, Schick and VB.

Movember is proud partners with the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and beyondblue - the national depression initiative.

Live Notes: Pushing the Limits of EFS in Vista & windows 2008 -Orin Thomas

Initially went into EFS / Bitlocker Differences

EFS Comes into it's own with Removable media

EFS does not protect the file in transit on the network, think wifi network use IPsec to mitigate this

Again very Deep watch for link.

In keeping with the Level 300 / 400 Target some of this stuff is not easily Live Notes Blogged this will remind me to talk about the highlights Later

Live Notes: Data Center of the future - Jamie Sharp

Jamie did a short history of Hacking

Now this is the Longest 2x Length session So I will summarize after I download the Deck cause it needs better focus

In keeping with the Level 300 / 400 Target some of this stuff is not easily Live Notes Blogged this will remind me to talk about the highlights Later

Live Notes: TFS Secure Dev Environment - Grant Holiday

TFS sync's AD users periodically, ***I wonder why not Just use AD or an ADAM instance***

Backup & DR

• Full SQL Backup
• Transaction Logs optionally
• Reporting services key & Password

HA & fail over

• Application Tier Warm Standby
• Data Tier - SQL Cluster
  • Better for Availability, App Tier does not hold much state

Has a Best Practices Analyzer

Ever though I would have thought TFS was not something I would see much I was surprised by Grants ITPro slant and great overview of the product too

Great Job Grant

These posts will be updated as I explore the Technology from what ever session I attend in accordance with "I am thinking of starting to blog events I go to Live, and then revisiting the posts when I get a chance to follow up with the speaker. So as usual no warranty all care, subject to change when I find out I missed the point."

Live Notes: Secure Remote Access as a tool for BC -David Grifiths

David spoke about how Lexmark created a BC response to the 2003 SARS Epidemic. Essentially how would Lexmark staff work from home if buildings were Quarantined

David's Presentation was a bit of what they did, what they thought about, and even for folk who do this all the time some things think about.

I thought it was quite useful, here is a summary of what he said

VPN's

Interesting explanation on how stuff works website???

"VPN's could be seen like submarines as in the How Stuff Works analogy but also extended to the attacks by stealth additional issue"

Lexmark's Implementation

• Identify Key Personnel
• Single point of contact per site
• Discoverd Home Internet Access
  • Hardware Firewalls Rolled out
• Laptop us Desktop
  • Assign Company Laptop
  • Enforced security Policy
• Contact Details
  • No office phone system
  • Need a new contact list private details
• Standard Builds Deployed
• Much tighter tracking of completed work

Results

• 200 ish users deployed in a week
• Side benefit of uses being able to work From home when schools closed

Lessons Learned

• Key Personnel should be mobile
• Data rate Assessment, remember ADSL Plans very greatly

These posts will be updated as I explore the Technology from what ever session I attend in accordance with "I am thinking of starting to blog events I go to Live, and then revisiting the posts when I get a chance to follow up with the speaker. So as usual no warranty all care, subject to change when I find out I missed the point."

Lorna's replacement has hit the ground

Well as we know Lorna got her Visas sorted and is off to Redmond leaving a gap in the Australian SBSC ranks, well I'm glad to say her relief is on deck and very quickly too.

I'd like to welcome Wendy Smith to the flock and offer her any help she needs while she gets up a full head of steam. Wendy says she will be planning to tour the major cities later in the month. Now this doesn't normally include Canberra but if you do make it, I'm sure you will be most welcome.

I'm looking forward to working with Wendy, so welcome aboard.

Wendy's Post can be found here http://blogs.msdn.com/sbsc_australia/archive/2007/10/11/introduction.aspx

I got an unexpected package today so I'm giving it away

I got a package today from PO Box 6066 Silverwater today. No note to say who it came from and the only real clue is it came addressed to me at my company address. Now this PO Box is kind of familiar it is where lots of Marketing stuff comes from for Partner Program things and collateral for User Group stuff.

So my suspects are Deeps or Jeffa

So what is it? Get on with it you say?

I have a Tech.Ed Orlando 2007 DVD Set, and those who went to Tech.Ed AU 2007 would have found a set in their bag so I don't need two.

So this is how I'm giving it away...

1. People who come to the Canberra Windows (Infrastructure) User Group can win;
2. I'm thinking of a number between 1 and my age;
3. Leave an expression of interest for it in the comments of either this or my Personal Blog;
4. Register for and turn up to the next User Group session;
5. If your comment is the number I'm thinking of (disclosed the week before next meeting) come and see me to collect your prize;
6. If by chance someone hits the magic number on both blogs the person with the earliest timestamp wins and the other "lucky" winner will get my last remaining Tech.Ed Boston 2006 DVD Set

Sound fair, great.

Remember for the last two years the best way to get a free Tech.Ed US DVD set has been to go to Tech.Ed AU

Also next Month you can see Rocky Heckman speak about a yet to be disclosed Security Topic

Good Luck

CBRWINUG October Meeting

Well what was cool about this month???

Athena did an informative overview of IT Pro Certification in the Windows 2008 era, this was very popular and run to about 30 Minutes in both sessions. Seems lots of people are like me siting on Windows NT 4.0 MCSE's. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that but for me a goal might be to sit an exam a month between now and March when the Windows 2008 Exams go live. That will give me the option to either upgrade or do the whole Windows 2008 Certification set. So why even certify at all?? Apart from marching Synergistic down the Gold Partner road it is good for the forced Professional Development path. Will I likely upgrade maybe not ofter the 70-240 scars, we will see. 

Jeff Alexander presented Deploying High Performance & Scalable Networks

There is lots about the IP Stack improvements and such but the things I needed to write down were:

• Scalable Networking Pack available for Windows 2003
• Check out next Generation TCPIP stack white paper by the Tolley group.

Of course the other thing that was great about this month was getting to sit down and chat with my favorite community leaders over a quick lunch.

Thanks for a great time both of you you are greatly appreciated. Oh while I'm singling out folk for being just great, thanks again Mark Host from Microsoft Canberra for coming back from leave to be our host in the MS Offices you under estimate how much that helps us and how much I for one really appreciate it.

Technet Quarterly Briefing - Jeff Alexander in Canberra

Network Policy Server

All about health,

• Policy Validation,
• Network Restriction
• Remediation
• ongoing compliance

NAP client in XP SP3 not sure of status for SP2 Agent

 *** Lack of SP2 support will hurt adoption***

 Network Monitor 3.1 includes Network Parser, Good to see traffic flow on NAP conversation.

NPS Radius Proxy server can allow Load Balancing Scenarios

Import of Export XML Files to Replicate configuration. *** XML is the new CSV export, don't ya think ***

WSUS 3.0

Vista Bits Peer caching Recommendation for client Geographically far from WSUS servers, one Vista machine gets updates and shares with other machines.

WSUS Server Maintenance

• Server cleanup wizard for stale PC's
• Update management / server maintenance 
• SQL Maint
  • Index defrag
  • SQL Backups

Deployment Architectures

• Single Server
• Remote SQL
• NLB
• WSUS Hierarchies
• Disconnected / DMZ
• Roaming Laptops

*...* Notes for Self 

These posts will be updated as I explore the Technology from what ever session I attend in accordance with "I am thinking of starting to blog events I go to Live, and then revisiting the posts when I get a chance to follow up with the speaker. So as usual no warranty all care, subject to change when I find out I missed the point."

IT as a Business - David Thomas CXC

This months ACS branch forum session was based around IT Company creation & management

David used the give a man a fish Quote, I prefer give a man a match one...

"Give a man a match and he'll be warm for a minute, Set a Man on fire & he'll be warm for the rest of his life"

***McDonalds model leasing Property & Equipment not so much the 6% on Product**.

"Today the world is flat" anyone can do much of what needs doing from anywhere.

Founder of Jobnet & CXC, David described the different businesses he is involved in and how CXC hangs together, he seems to build companies to do the things CXC offers, not much if anything is outsourced. David says "I can't find companies to partner with that can handle volume without mistakes" so he seems to build them "only invest in companies that support his core business"

I heard some Punters ask each other"has ever heard of outsourcing"

David recommends:

• Select best people; Sales , Accounting, Professional etc
• Minimize risk, home office not bad, especially good for Cashflow,
• Over service,
• Go Extra mile do what is expected, sort it out later. David used a Pay Roll analogy "Pay Now" sort out issue on Monday analogy,
• Understand your CORE business,
• Management By Walking About (MBWA)

*...* Notes for Self 

These posts will be updated as I explore the Technology from what ever session I attend in accordance with "I am thinking of starting to blog events I go to Live, and then revisiting the posts when I get a chance to follow up with the speaker. So as usual no warranty all care, subject to change when I find out I missed the point."

Rugby world cup is finally here! and now over for many - Come on Fiji

Well last night I learned how Nick must feel about the Irish not getting to the Quarter Finals.

It was a tough game and it seemed to me that England were way more committed, and more physical I don't think I've seen so much ball turned over at the break down. And YES we were kicked away AGAIN by Johnny.

To see the shattered look on Bernie Larkham's face when he came down onto the field was almost as much as I could bear.

Loti Tuqiri (the only try scorer) was philosophical after the match when he suggested we should be watching Fiji as they are still in the competition and if the two games so far are an indication could also go through against South Africa tonight. Now that would be what the World Cup is about not to mention Fiji could really use a unifying event like this.

So far the Rugby big guns of Australia and New Zealand are out suffering just 2 Point Loses.

But at least we didn't guess as badly as Nick

We'll see how it pans out...   but I am certain that the English will be out before the Irish so at least I won't be paying ;)

Source: http://msmvps.com/blogs/thenakedmvp/archive/2007/09/08/rugby-world-cup-is-finally-here.aspx

SQL Server Event in Canberra - Quest Software - Thursday 11th October

Everyone knows how I love companies bringing events to Canberra - NO I don't go to them all but really feel that vendors who are not solely focused on numbers but being a little community focused should be supported so go along if you can.  Join international SQL Server expert Kevin Kline for an informative no-cost seminar on SQL Server. Kevin is the! Technical Strategy Manager for SQL Server Solutions at Quest Software and the President of the International Professional Association for SQL Server (PASS). Kevin has also been a Microsoft SQL Server MVP since 2004.

Learn more about:

• Procedure Best Practices
• Performance, Baselining, Benchmarking and Monitoring
• Top 10 Mistakes on SQL Server (Melbourne only)
• Surviving the Data Avalanche (Melbourne only)