Microsoft launches new CRM cloud promotion on eve of Salesforce conference

Microsoft is launching a new Dynamics CRM Online promotional deal, as well as unleashing a new spoof virtualization video the same week that Salesforce’s Dreamforce and VMware’s VMworld shows are kicking off.

Microsoft is launching a limited-time promotion for its Dynamics CRM Online service on the opening day of rival Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce conference.

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Via its “Cloud CRM for Less” offer, Microsoft is targeting Salesforce, SAP and Oracle switchers, the Redmondians announced on August 29. (However, to qualify, customers seemingly don’t need to be using products or services from any of these vendors.)

Microsoft is offering users $150 in cash per user seat for between 50 and 500 seats per customer. The promotional offer is available between now and March 31, 2012.

Here’s the fine print: The deal is only open to customers in U.S. and Canada and only to those that purchase at least 50 CRM Online licenses. To get the money back, companies need to sign a two-year licensing subscription deal for Microsoft’s Dynamics CRM Online.

Microsoft CRM Online is priced at $44 per user per month.

Microsoft officials have said they plan to roll out a new version of the CRM Online service before the end of this calendar year. They also are going to add CRM Online to Microsoft’s Office 365 hosted-app bundle later this year. Office 365 currently includes Microsoft-hosted Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and Lync Online.

Salesforce isn’t the only company at which Microsoft is taking aim at the start of the week. In honor of VMware’s VMworld conference, which kicks off on August 29, Microsoft also made one of its trademark video spoofs available. Remember Gmail Man? Today, Microsoft took the wraps off his counterpart, Tad, who works for a virtualization company stuck in the past known as VMlimited.

Quotations from Chairman Steve

A mosaic of Apple leader Steve Jobs' on-the-record opinions and musings

We ended up opting for these Miele appliances, made in Germany. ... These guys really thought the process through. They did such a great job designing these washers and dryers. I got more thrill out of them than I have out of any piece of high tech in years. -- Wired, February 1996
On copyright and patents

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If copyright dies, if patents die, if the protection of intellectual property is eroded, then people will stop investing. That hurts everyone. People need to have the incentive that if they invest and succeed, they can make a fair profit. Otherwise they'll stop investing. -- Rolling Stone, 2003
On television as the "most corrosive technology I've every seen"

Because the average American watches five hours a day of television, and television is a passive medium. Television doesn't turn your brain on. Or, television can be used to turn your brain off, and that's what it's mostly used for. And that's a wonderful thing sometimes -- but not for five hours a day. -- Rolling Stone, 2003
On music

I think we're all happier when we have a little more music in our lives. ... We were very lucky -- we grew up in a generation where music was an incredibly intimate part of that generation. More intimate than it had been, and maybe more intimate than it is today, because today there's a lot of other alternatives. We didn't have video games to play. We didn't have personal computers. There's so many other things competing for kids' time now. But, nonetheless, music is really being reinvented in this digital age, and that is bringing it back into people's lives. It's a wonderful thing. -- Rolling Stone, 2003

On how the Web will "affect the way we live in the future"
I don't think of the world that way. I'm a tool builder. That's how I think of myself. I want to build really good tools that I know in my gut and my heart will be valuable. And then whatever happens is ... you can't really predict exactly what will happen, but you can feel the direction that we're going. And that's about as close as you can get. Then you just stand back and get out of the way, and these things take on a life of their own. -- Rolling Stone, 1994
On the next great thing

If I were running Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it's worth -- and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago. -- Fortune, Feb. 19, 1996, via Wired: "Steve Jobs' Best Quotes Ever," March 2006
On whether innovation can be "systematized"

The system is that there is no system. That doesn't mean we don't have process. Apple is a very disciplined company, and we have great processes. But that's not what it's about. Process makes you more efficient.

But innovation comes from people meeting up in the hallways or calling each other at 10:30 at night with a new idea, or because they realized something that shoots holes in how we've been thinking about a problem. It's ad hoc meetings of six people called by someone who thinks he has figured out the coolest new thing ever and who wants to know what other people think of his idea. And it comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don't get on the wrong track or try to do too much. -- Businessweek, October 2004
On his involvement with Apple's innovations

We go back and forth a lot as we work on our projects. And we've got such great people [in the top executive team] that I've been able to move about half of the day-to-day management of the company to them, so I can spend half my time on the new stuff, like the retail [store] effort. I spent and continue to spend a lot of time on that. And I meet weekly for two or three hours with my OS X team. And there's the group doing our iLife applications.

So I get to spend my time on the forward-looking stuff. My top executives take half the other work off my plate. They love it, and I love it. -- Businessweek, October 2004
On the nature of the Web

The best way to think of the Web is as a direct-to-customer distribution channel, whether it's for information or commerce. It bypasses all middlemen. And, it turns out, there are a lot of middlepersons in this society. And they generally tend to slow things down, muck things up, and make things more expensive. The elimination of them is going to be profound. -- Wired, 1996
On optimism

I'm an optimist in the sense that I believe humans are noble and honorable, and some of them are really smart. I have a very optimistic view of individuals. As individuals, people are inherently good. I have a somewhat more pessimistic view of people in groups. And I remain extremely concerned when I see what's happening in our country, which is in many ways the luckiest place in the world. We don't seem to be excited about making our country a better place for our kids. -- Wired, 1996
On technology and its prospects for changing the world

The problem is I'm older now, I'm 40 years old, and this stuff doesn't change the world. It really doesn't. ... Having children really changes your view on these things. We're born, we live for a brief instant, and we die. It's been happening for a long time. Technology is not changing it much -- if at all.

These technologies can make life easier, can let us touch people we might not otherwise. ... I'm not downplaying that. But it's a disservice to constantly put things in this radical new light -- that it's going to change everything. Things don't have to change the world to be important. -- Wired, 1996
On being fired from Apple

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life. -- Commencement address, Stanford University, 2005
On death

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Browsing and Privacy: How to Not Get Tracked

All modern browsers have built-in tools and add-ons to protect users from having their Web behavior tracked. But regardless, some sites still find ways to track you. Here are tips for taking matters into your own hands.CIO — If you're old enough to remember the Cold War, you know what an arms race is. One side comes up with a new weapon, the other side matches it, and then the first comes back with something even bigger and so on and so on. That also describes the ongoing battle between computer users who value their privacy and the Web sites and their advertisers that don't.

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Every time browser developers and others come up with a defense against tracking — the use of tiny bits of computer code that tells Web sites where you've been on the Internet — the other side ups the ante with a new trick. And it's happening again.

A researcher at Stanford University recently found that Microsoft (MSFT) has been using an online tracking technology that allowed the company to sneakily track users on MSN.com even though it had used some of the standard techniques developed to avoid tracking.
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Another group of researchers found that other sites, including Hulu.com, employed super cookie techniques to track users for advertising purposes. They wrote: "We found two sites that were respawning cookies, including one site — Hulu.com — where both flash and cache cookies were employed to make identifiers more persistent. The cache cookie method used Etags, and is capable of unique tracking even where all cookies are blocked by the user and 'private browsing mode' is enabled." (The authors are from The University of California at Berkeley, Worcester Polytechnic and the University of Wyoming. The emphasis is mine.)

Shortly after the report by Stanford's Jonathan Mayer surfaced last week, Microsoft announced that it would stop the use of the so-called super cookies on MSN. A few days after the UC Berkeley report was published, Hulu announced in a blog post: "Upon reading the research report, we acted immediately to investigate and address the issues identified. This included suspending our use of the services of the outside vendor mentioned in the study."

Hulu says that the super cookie technology was used by two of their outside vendors, an attempt, the report notes, by Hulu to absolve itself of responsibility. You can decide for yourself if you buy that. But more to the point, what can you do to defend yourself?

Some super cookies live in the cache, which is where the browser stores MCITP Online Training – Free MCTS Training – Web pages you've visited recently. By clearing the cache, you'll get rid of them. That works, but there are two caveats: Dumping the cache will slow down your browser. That's because cached Web sites load right away; without the cache the browser has to render them from scratch. And when you visit that site again, a new super cookie will glom on to your browser.

Memo to Microsoft: Don't Panic over Motorola

Google made a defensive move against Apple and Microsoft. Microsoft should not have a knee-jerk response over this.

The week got off to a bang with the folks at Google deciding that Motorola Mobility is the droids they are looking for, to the tune of $12.5 billion. In one fell swoop, a company that makes no tangible products and enjoys some of the highest profit margins in the industry suddenly wound up with a mobile handset vendor, and a struggling one at that.

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In the fallout of this news, Om Malik is claiming Microsoft was also courting Motorola. Word of this made Google get off its tail and pay the premium price for Moto.

Google didn't buy Motorola to be a handset vendor. It bought Moto for the same reason Microsoft had its eye on Motorola Mobile: the patents. Both Microsoft and Google wanted the deep patent portfolio at Moto to protect their respective ecosystems. Larry Page said flat out in his blog post explaining the deal "our acquisition of Motorola will increase competition by strengthening Google's patent portfolio, which will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies."

In a very prescient move, Creative Strategies analyst Ben Bajarin called this just five days ago. "Based on recent actions it can be concluded that Google knows they need to secure a more robust patent portfolio. More specifically they need a patent portfolio around mobile devices to help protect Android," he wrote.

So now Google has bought itself a $12.5 billion boat anchor that many pundits are predicting will drain the company of resources (of at least $12.5 billion, obviously), time and energy. Acquisitions that big almost always cause a company in a competitive field to stumble. Remember, that was one of the warnings people had over Microsoft's proposed $44 billion purchase of Yahoo; that the company would be set back for years in the search business, and possibly other areas as well.

Now, Microsoft does possibly lose a little here. Motorola Mobility CEO Sanjay Jha had expressed openness to selling Moto phones with Windows Phone 7 and 8, although given how much radiation Moto phones give off, I'm not too crushed at losing out on a Droid 2 Mango phone.

However, the company stands to lose a lot more if it reacts reflexively. I seriously doubt Steve Ballmer needs my advice, but I'll offer it anyway: don't be stupid and make a reactionary move. If Malik is right, you lost out on a good deal, but as of now, with Moto and Nortel off the market, your options fairly stink.

Samsung and HTC are out of reach. Nokia would be a massive mistake, and we've been over that already. If Microsoft wants to shore up Nokia, it should make the firm an offer for its Trolltech and NAVTEQ business units. That will give Nokia some cash and give Microsoft new product opportunities.

Research in Motion, while offering great back-end services through BES, is rapidly shrinking and Microsoft doesn't need a company that's in dire need of a turn-around with a competing operating system. If RIM collapses in a heap, like Nortel, then maybe it's worth it for a bargain price, but I don't want to see that happen to RIM.

Microsoft is a patent-rich company on the software side. Its successful squeeze of Android vendors proves that. What Microsoft needs to do right now is shore up Windows Phone 7.5 agreements and sit back and watch Google choke as it tries to swallow a $12.5 billion meal.

Inspector Gadgets: Windows 7 Gadgets for Monitoring Your PC

It's been nearly two years since Windows 7 was released, and yet there are still some features that Windows 7 users may not be taking full advantage of -- such as desktop gadgets. Similar to the Mac's Dashboard Widgets, Windows desktop gadgets are mini-applications that reside on your desktop and can display live data, perform simple functions like search or password generation, or give you a sneak peek inside the inner workings of your PC.

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By default, SysInfo appears as a small icon that doesn't show any data, but click on the icon and a huge panel displaying system information in a wide variety of categories pops up. On top of things like operating system details and the capacity utilization of the processor, there's data on the computer's drives, network connections and battery life.

SysInfo doesn't provide all the details that more specialized gadgets like Network Monitor provide, but it's an excellent overview, and there's an uptime clock that shows how long it's been since the system was started. You can choose to have SysInfo display all its info on the desktop or just in clickable category headers or the single icon, and you can adjust its size on the desktop.

Download SysInfo (265KB)

System Control A1

In contrast, System Control A1 focuses on the essentials. In addition to a prominent digital clock that shows the current time (in a 12- or 24-hour format) as well as uptime, System Control presents a nifty bar graph showing how much memory the system has as well as its free memory available.

It also monitors the utilization of the processor's threads (which it calls cores) over time and displays the results in graphs -- useful information for those who push their systems to the limit.

Unfortunately, System Control's display isn't adjustable, and it can steal a lot of desktop area.

These two gadgets complement each other nicely: SysInfo does a good job of showing a snapshot of many of the current goings-on inside your system, while System Control A1 graphs processor utilization over time, which can be helpful in trying to trace a program that's been using a lot of system resources.

One of these gadgets -- or both -- belongs on every PC.

Download System Control A1 (26KB)

Temperature gauge

Core Temp Gadget

There are few things worse for your computer than allowing its processor, often its most expensive part, to overheat and burn out. All it takes is one key transistor in the chip shorting out and the whole thing is an expensive piece of garbage.

ALCPU's Core Temp Gadget can help keep your PC from getting hot under the collar. For it to work, you'll also need to load the free Core Temp application, but the whole process takes just a couple of minutes.

Version 2 of the Core Temp Gadget shows what processor your system has, its actual clock speed and how much of the system's memory is being used. On many systems, it'll also display the chip's voltage, although some processors -- mine included -- don't support this.

Security rundown for week ending Aug. 19

Debate over wisdom of firewalls, passwords and SSL -- plus, Anonymous strikes again

Some older assumptions about security -- such as firewalls are needed for perimeter defense, and we'll all make do with reusable passwords and browser-based SSL connections provide great security -- were once again ripped apart as we heard this week from several individuals who say they simply don't agree.

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"I don't think firewalls are necessary. They prohibit work from being accomplished," was one remark from Nathan McBride, executive director of IT at Amag Pharmaceuticals, in describing how the company has migrated off an older Microsoft-based network to one based on both application cloud services and cloud-based single-sign-on for about 240 employees. His story provoked some blistering comments online from Network World readers. Here's a selection from a few:

"Firewalls. This comment can only come from an IT manager. Really? Do you know what a firewall does? ..."

"I almost LOLd! Wow. I'd like to see them pass a PCI scan with no firewalls. Cloud service providers use firewalls, too."

"How dumb does it get? ... let's hire some clueless jerk to make it someone else's responsibility ..."

"Say What? ... And what company doesn't put a firewall between the Internet and their computers, whether PCs or servers? I'm not impressed."

MORE ON SECURITY: Tips and tricks for protecting Android devices

All of this just shows that the debate over whether perimeter firewalls are worth it anymore is still fierce (and yes, the PCI standard for payment-card calls for a lot of firewalls). You may recall that it was the Jericho Forum with its group of IT professionals about five years ago that began pounding the drum on the firewall topic, saying for perimeter defense, a firewall is largely an outmoded idea and can impede e-commerce. The debate is still intense about it.

The Jericho Forum has now taken up the topic of identity management, saying continuing reliance on reusable passwords in this era of cloud computing is totally misguided, and a stronger trust framework needs to unfold for large-scale Internet use.

That's what the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace (NSTIC) initiative from the Obama administration is trying to coordinate, with the high-tech industry taking the lead. We caught up this week with NSTIC Director Jeremy Grant, who explained what the federal government has in mind so far to foster more secure alternatives to passwords in a new "identity ecosystem." Don Thibeau, chairman of the Open Identity Exchange (OIX) --the members of which, including Google, want to participate in the NTSIC process -- also told us watch for some innovative pilot projects coordinated among Google, Microsoft and AOL for secure email later this fall.

And finally, when it comes to doubting the usefulness of long-used technologies, this week we heard about a team of researchers pointing out that SSL, the encryption scheme that protects many online transactions, isn't really that trustworthy because the chain of trust that's established via a browser can be broken when phony certificates are issued. Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University think there's a better mousetrap that can be made through their ideas proposed in Perspectives; a second idea, called Convergence, is being worked on by Moxie Marlinspike, a fellow at the Institute for Disruptive Studies, a lab devoted to privacy, anonymity and computer security.

Free 70-620 Exams

11. Your computer runs Microsoft Windows 2000 with Service Pack 3.
You need to upgrade your computer to Microsoft Windows Vista. You must achieve this goal without reinstalling the applications.
What should you do?

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A. First upgrade the computer to Microsoft Windows XP Professional, and then upgrade to Windows Vista.
B. Install Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional Service Pack 4 on the computer. Start a Windows Vista upgrade from an installation DVD.
C. Install Windows Vista into a separate partition. Use the Windows Easy Transfer wizard to upgrade your settings to the Windows Vista
operating system.
D. Copy your user profile to a removable media. Perform a clean installation of Windows Vista. Copy your user profile to the C:Users
directory.
Answer: A
12. You have a computer that runs Microsoft Windows XP. Your computer has the following hardware installed:
·CD-ROM drive
·1024 megabytes (MB) of RAM
·120 gigabytes (GB) hard disk drive that has 30 GB of free space
·DirectX 9-class graphics adapter that supports Windows Display Driver Model (WDDM) and Pixel Shader 2.0
·128 megabytes (MB) of dedicated video memory
You want to install Windows Vista on your computer by using the retail installation media. You also want to enable Windows Aero.
You need to ensure that your computer hardware supports the planned installation.
What should you do?
A. Install a network card.
B. Install a DVD-ROM drive.
C. Replace the hard disk drive.
D. Replace the graphics adapter.
Answer: B
13. You have an application that is incompatible with Windows Aero.
You need to ensure that Windows Aero is automatically disabled when you run the application.
What should you do?
A. Run the application as a standard user.
B. Configure the appearance settings to enable transparency.
C. From the application's compatibility settings, disable desktop composition.
D. Assign your user account the read and execute permission on the application's executable file.
Answer: C
14. Your computer hardware supports Microsoft Windows Aero Experience.
The transparency feature does not appear to be enabled.
You need to use the transparency feature.
What are the two possible ways to achieve this goal? (Each correct answer presents a complete solution. Choose two.)
A. Configure theme settings to Windows Vista.
B. Increase the screen resolution to 1024 x 768 pixels or higher.
C. Change the Color scheme option to Windows Aero.
D. Change the Visual effects option to Let Windows choose what's best for my computer.
Answer: AC
15. You perform an in-place upgrade on a Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) computer to Windows Vista.
After the upgrade, you attempt to run a custom application. You receive the following error message: "This application is only designed to
run on Windows XP or later."
You need to run the application on Windows Vista.
What should you do?
A. Modify the application properties to run in 256 colors.
B. Configure the application to run with elevated privileges.
C. Connect to Microsoft Updates and download any available updates.
D. Modify the application properties to run in Windows XP SP2 compatibility mode.
Answer: D
16. You need to verify whether your computer can obtain all of the latest operating system updates.
What should you do?
A. Confirm that your computer has a Microsoft Windows Experience Index base score above 3.0.
B. Run Microsoft Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor.
C. Configure Windows Defender to detect updates before scanning.
D. Validate your Windows installation from the Microsoft Windows Genuine Advantage Web page.
Answer: D
17. You install Windows Vista on a new computer by using the retail installation media.
You install a new hardware device. You are not prompted for any drivers and the installation completes successfully.
You discover that an updated driver is available for the hardware device.
You need to install the updated driver.
What should you do?
A. In Control Panel, run the Add Hardware wizard.
B. From System Properties, disable Data Execution Prevention (DEP) and then restart.
C. In Device Manager, right-click on the hardware device and select Update Driver Software.
D. In Device Manager, right-click on the hardware device and select Scan for hardware changes.
Answer: C
18. You need to configure a new computer to dual-boot to the following operating systems:
·Microsoft Windows XP Professional
·Microsoft Windows Vista
Which two procedures should you perform? (Each correct answer presents a complete solution. Choose two.)
A. Create two partitions. Install Windows XP Professional on the first partition. Boot the computer from the Windows Vista DVD-ROM.
Install Windows Vista on the second partition.
B. Create two partitions. Install Windows Vista on the first partition. Boot from the Windows XP Professional installation CD-ROM. Install
Windows XP Professional on the second partition.
C. Create one partition. Install Windows XP Professional on the partition. From Windows XP Professional launch the Windows Vista setup
utility. Install Windows Vista in the same partition.
D. Create two partitions. Install Windows XP Professional on the first partition. From Windows XP Professional launch the Windows Vista
setup utility. Install Windows Vista on the second partition.
Answer: AD
19. You install Windows Vista on a computer for a user who is visually impaired.
You need to configure a High Contrast color scheme on the computer.
What should you do?
A. Open the Control Panel and start Color Management.
B. Open the Control Panel and start Ease of Access Center.
C. Right-click the desktop, click Personalize, and click Theme.
D. Right-click the desktop, click Personalize, and click Display Settings.
Answer: B
20. You attempt to upgrade a Microsoft Windows XP computer to Windows Vista.
You receive an error message during the upgrade process indicating that the upgrade has failed.
You need to view the details of the error message.
What should you do?
A. From the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE), run diskpart.exe.
B. From the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE), review the Boot.ini file.
C. From the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE), examine the contents of the WindowsPanther folder.
D. Start the computer from the Windows XP installation media and select the Repair option.
Answer: C

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70-680 Exam Questions&Answers-Part 3

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Exam : Microsoft 70-680

Title : TS: Windows 7, Configuring

37. You have a computer that runs Windows 7.

You create a HomeGroup.

You need to secure the HomeGroup to meet the following requirements:

Allow access to the HomeGroup when you are connected to private networks

Block access to the HomeGroup when you are connected to public networks

What should you do?

A. From Network and Sharing Center, modify the advanced sharing settings.

B. From the HomeGroup settings in Control Panel, modify the advanced sharing settings.

C. Configure the HomeGroup exception in Windows Firewall to include Home or work (private) networks and block Public networks.

D. Configure the File and Printer Sharing exception in Windows Firewall to include Home or work (private) networks and block Public networks.

Answer: C

38. You have two computers named Computer1 and Computer2 that run Windows 7.

You need to ensure that you can remotely execute commands on Computer2 from Computer1.

What should you do?

A. Run Winrm quickconfig on Computer1.

B. Run Winrm quickconfig on Computer2.

C. Enable Windows Remote Management (WinRM) through Windows Firewall on Computer1.

D. Enable Windows Remote Management (WinRM) through Windows Firewall on Computer2.

Answer: B



39. You have a workgroup that contains five computers. The computers run Windows 7.

A computer named Computer1 has video and audio files.

You need to share Computer1’s video and audio files on the network.

Which two actions should you perform? (Each correct answer presents part of the solution. Choose two.)

A. Create a HomeGroup.

B. Move the files to a Media Library.

C. Enable all BranchCache rules in Windows Firewall.

D. Connect a removable drive and enable BitLocker To Go.

Answer: AB



40. You have a computer that runs Windows 7.

A printer is installed on the computer.

You remove the Everyone group from the access control list (ACL) for the printer, and then you share the printer.

You need to ensure that members of the Sales group can modify all the print jobs that they submit. You must prevent Sales group members from modifying the print jobs of other users.

What should you do?

A. From the printer’s properties, assign the Print permission to the Sales group.

B. From the printer’s properties, assign the Manage Documents permission to the Sales group.

C. From the local Group Policy, assign the Increase scheduling priority user right to the Sales group.

D. From the local Group Policy, assign the Take ownership of files or other objects user right to the Sales group.

Answer: A

41. A user named User1 uses a shared computer that runs Windows 7. User1 is a member of group named Group1.

The computer contains a folder named Folder1.

You need to configure the permissions on Folder1 to meet the following requirements:

User1 must be allowed to delete all files in Folder1

Members of Group1 must be able to create files in Folder1

All other members of Group1 must be prevented from deleting files they did not create in Folder1

All users must be prevented from modifying the permissions on Folder1

What should you do?

A. Assign Group1 the Write permission. Assign User1 the Modify permission.

B. Assign Group1 the Modify permission. Assign User1 the Write permission.

C. Deny Group1 the Write permission. Assign User1 the Modify permission.

D. Deny Group1 the Modify permission. Assign User1 the Write permission.

Answer: A



42. You have a computer that runs Windows 7.

Multiple users log on to your computer.

You enable auditing on a folder stored on your computer.

You need to ensure that each access to the folder is logged.

What should you do?

A. Start the Problem Steps Recorder.

B. From Event Viewer, modify the properties of the Security log.

C. From the local Group Policy, configure the Audit object access setting.

D. From the local Group Policy, configure the Audit directory service Access setting.

Answer: C



43. You have a standalone computer that runs Windows 7.

You need to prevent non-administrative users from using Device Manager. Users must be able to access Event Viewer.

What should you do?

A. From Control Panel, modify the default settings for media and devices.

B. From Control Panel, modify the default settings for device installation.

C. From the local computer policy, modify the application control policies.

D. From the local computer policy, modify the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) settings.

Answer: D



44. You have a computer that runs Windows 7.

You run Runas and specify the /savecred parameter to start an application.

You need to delete the stored password.

What should you do?

A. Run Del and specify the /p parameter.

B. Run Runas and specify the /noprofile parameter.

C. From Credential Manager, modify the Windows credentials.

D. From Authorization Manager, modify the Authorization Manager options.

Answer: C



45. Your company has an internal Web site that requires HTTPS. The Web site’s certificate is self-signed.

You have a computer that runs Windows 7 and Windows Internet Explorer 8.

You use HTTPS to browse to the Web site and receive the following warning message.There is a problem with this website’s security certificate.

You need to prevent the warning message from appearing when you access the Web site.

What should you do?

A. From Internet Explorer, enable InPrivate Browsing.

B. From Internet Explorer, add the Web site to the Trusted sites zone.

C. From Certificate Manager, import the Web sites certificate into your Personal store.

D. From Certificate Manager, import the Web sites certificate into your Trusted Root Certification Authorities store.

Answer: D

46. Your network has a main office and a branch office.

The branch office has five client computers that run Windows 7. All client computers are configured to use BranchCache.

At the branch office, a computer named Computer1 is experiencing performance issues.

You need to temporarily prevent all computers from retrieving cached content from Computer1.

What should you do on Computer1?

A. At the command prompt, run Netsh branchcache flush.

B. At the command prompt, run Netsh branchcache dump.

C. Modify the Configure BranchCache for network files Group Policy setting.

D. Modify the Set percentage of disk space used for client computer cache Group Policy setting.

Answer: A



47. You have a computer that runs Windows 7.

You need to prevent users from copying unencrypted files to removable drives.

What should you do?

A. From the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) snap-in, initialize TPM.

B. From Control Panel, modify the BitLocker Drive Encryption settings.

C. From a local Group Policy, modify the BitLocker Drive Encryption settings.

D. From a local Group Policy, modify the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) settings.

Answer: C



48. You have a standalone computer that runs Windows 7. Multiple users share the computer.

You need to ensure that you can read the content of all encrypted files on the computer.

What should you do?

A. Run the Certificates Enrollment wizard and then run Certutil.exe ¨Cimportpfx.

B. Run the Certificates Enrollment wizard and then run Certutil.exe ¨Cinstallcert.

C. Run Cipher.exe /r and then add a data recovery agent from the local security policy.

D. Run Cipher.exe /rekey and then import a security template from the local security policy.

Answer: C

49. Your network consists of an Active Directory domain and a DirectAccess infrastructure.

You install Windows 7 on a new portable computer and join the computer to the domain.

You need to ensure that the computer can establish DirectAccess connections.

What should you do?

A. Install a computer certificate.

B. Create a new network connection.

C. Enable the Network Discovery firewall exception.

D. Add the computer account to the Network Configuration Operators group.

Answer: A



50. You have a portable computer named Computer1 that runs Windows 7.

You have a file server named Server1 that runs Windows Server 2008. Server1 contains a shared folder named Share1.

You need to configure Computer1 to meet the following requirements:

Ensure that cached files from Share1 are encrypted.

Ensure that files located in Share1 are available when Server1 is disconnected from the network.

What should you do?

A. On Server1, encrypt the files in Share1. On Computer1, make Share1 available offline.

B. On Server1, configure BitLocker Drive Encryption. On Computer1, make Share1 available offline.

C. On Computer1, make Share1 available offline and enable encryption of offline files.

D. On Computer1, copy the files from Share1 to the Documents library and configure BitLocker Drive Encryption.

Answer: C



51. Your network contains an Active Directory domain. All servers run Windows Server 2008 R2 and are members of the domain. All servers are located in the main office.

You have a portable computer named Computer1 that runs Windows 7. Computer1 is joined to the domain and is located in a branch office.

A file server named Server1 contains a shared folder named Share1.

You need to configure Computer1 to meet the following requirements:

Minimize network traffic between the main office and the branch office

Ensure that Computer1 can only access resources in Share1 while it is connected to the network

What should you do?

A. On Computer1, enable offline files.

B. On Computer1, enable transparent caching.

C. On Server1, configure DirectAccess.

D. On Server1, configure Share1 to be available offline.

Answer: B



52. You have a computer that runs Windows 7. The computer connects to the corporate network by using a VPN connection.

You need to ensure that you can access the Internet when the VPN connection is active. The solution must prevent Internet traffic from being routed through the VPN connection.

What should you do?

A. Configure a static DNS server address.

B. Configure a static IP address and default gateway.

C. Configure the security settings of the VPN connection.

D. Configure the advanced TCP/IP settings of the VPN connection.

Answer: D



53. You have a computer that runs Windows 7.

Your network contains a DHCP server that runs Windows Server 2008 R2. The server is configured as a Network Access Protection (NAP) enforcement point.

You need to configure the computer as a NAP client.

Which two actions should you perform? (Each correct answer presents part of the solution. Choose two.)

A. From Services, set the Netlogon service Startup Type to Automatic.

B. From Services, set the Network Access Protection Agent service Startup Type to Automatic.

C. From the NAP Client Configuration console, configure the user interface settings.

D. From the NAP Client Configuration console, enable the DHCP Quarantine Enforcement Client.

Answer: BD

54. You have two computers named Computer1 and Computer2 that run Windows 7. Both computers are members of an Active Directory domain.

Windows Remote Management (WinRM) is enabled on both computers.

You need to remotely create additional disk volumes on Computer1 from Computer2.

What should you do?

A. On Computer2, run Winrs and then run Diskpart.

B. On Computer2, run Winrs and then run Diskmgmt.msc.

C. On Computer1, install the Telnet Client and then run Diskpart from Computer2.

D. On Computer1, install the Telnet Client and then use Disk Management from Computer2.

Answer: A

55. A remote user has a computer that runs Windows 7.

The user reports that he receives several error messages while using an application.

You do not have remote access to the user’s computer.

You need to tell the user how to create screenshots of the actions he performs on the computer. The solution must track the mouse actions that the user performs.

What should you instruct the user to do?

A. Press ALT+PrintScreen.

B. Run Psr.exe and then click Start Record.

C. From Mouse Properties, select Display pointer trails.

D. Run Snippingtool.exe, click New, and then click Window Snip.

Answer: B



56. You need to increase the size of a paging file.

What should you do?

A. From Disk Management, shrink the boot partition.

B. From Disk Management, shrink the system partition.

C. From System, modify the Advanced system settings.

D. From System, modify the System protection settings.

Answer: C



57. You have a computer that runs Windows 7. You perform regular data backups and system image backups.

The computer experiences a hard disk failure. You replace the failed hard disk.

You need to recover the computer to the previous Windows 7 environment.

You start the computer from the Windows 7 installation media.

Which recover option should you select?

A. Command Prompt

B. Startup Repair

C. System Image Recovery

D. System Restore

Answer: C



58. You have a computer that runs Windows Vista (x86).

You need to perform a clean installation of Windows 7 (64-bit).

What should you do?

A. From the Windows 7 installation media, run Rollback.exe.

B. From the Windows 7 installation media, run Migsetup.exe.

C. Start the computer from the Windows 7 installation media. From the Install Windows dialog box, select the Upgrade option.

D. Start the computer from the Windows 7 installation media. From the Install Windows dialog box, select the Custom (advanced) option.

Answer: D



59. You have a computer that runs Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2).

You need to upgrade the operating system to Windows 7. You must achieve this goal in the minimum amount of time.

What should you do?

A. Upgrade to Windows Vista SP2. From the Windows 7 installation media, run Setup.exe and select the Upgrade option.

B. Upgrade to Windows Vista SP2. From the Windows 7 installation media, run Setup.exe and select the Custom (advanced) option.

C. Install Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3). Run Setup.exe from the Windows 7 installation media and select the Upgrade option.

D. Install Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3). Run Setup.exe from the Windows 7 installation media and select the Custom (advanced) option.

Answer: A



60. Your network consists of a single Active Directory forest.

You have 50 portable computers and 50 desktop computers. All computers have 32-bit hardware.

You plan to deploy Windows 7 and 10 corporate applications to the computers by using a custom image.

You need to prepare for the deployment by using the minimum amount of administrative effort.

What should you do first?

A. On one computer, install Windows 7 and the corporate applications.

B. On one portable computer and one desktop computer, install Windows 7 and the corporate applications.

C. On a server, install and run the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit.

D. On a server, install the Windows Automated Installation Kit (AIK) and run Windows System Image Manager (Windows SIM).

Answer: A



61. You have a computer that runs Windows 7.

You need to copy files to a virtual hard disk (VHD) file.

What should you do first?

A. Run Dism.exe and specify the /image and /online parameters.

B. Open Windows Explorer, right-click the VHD file and select Open.

C. Run Diskpart.exe and then run the Select and Attach commands.

D. Run Imagex.exe and specify the /mountrw and /append parameters.

Answer: C



62. You have a computer that runs Windows 7.

You create an application shim for a third-party application by using the Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT).

You need to ensure that the application shim is applied the next time you run the application.

What should you do first?

A. Run Sdbinst.exe.

B. Run Msiexec.exe.

C. Right-click the application executable file and modify the compatibility settings.

D. Right-click the application executable file and modify the advanced security settings.

Answer: A



63. You have a computer that runs Windows 7. Multiple users log on to the computer.

The computer has five removable devices.

You need to ensure that users can only access removable devices that have been previously installed on the computer.

What should you modify in the Local Group Policy?

A. Enable the Prevent redirection of USB devices setting.

B. Enable the Prevent installation of removable devices setting.

C. Disable the WPD Devices: Deny read access setting.

D. Disable the Allow administrators to override Device Installation Restriction policies setting.

Answer: B



64. Your network consists of a single Active Directory domain named contoso.com.

You have a server named Server1 that runs a custom network application.

Server1 has the following IP addresses:

·192.168.15.10

·192.168.15.11

You need to ensure that a client computer resolves server1.contoso.com to only the 192.168.15.11 IP address.

What should you do from the computer?

A. Edit the hosts file.

B. Edit the lmhosts file.

C. Run Ipconfig.exe /flushdns.

D. Run Netsh interface ipv4 reset.

Answer: A

65. You have a computer named Computer1 that runs Windows 7. Computer1 is a member of an Active Directory domain. Remote Desktop is enabled on the computer.

You share a folder on Computer1.

You need to configure Computer1 to meet the following requirements:

·Allow computers in the local subnet to access the shared folder

·Prevent computers in remote subnets from accessing the shared folder

·Allow all computers to connect to Computer1 by using Remote Desktop

What should you do?

A. Modify the subnet mask.

B. Modify the Public folder sharing settings.

C. Disable network discovery on all computers located in remote subnets.

D. Modify the properties of the File and Printer Sharing firewall exceptions.

Answer: D

66. You have a computer that runs Windows 7.

You attempt to add files to %programfiles%\app1 and receive a prompt to elevate your privileges.

You need to ensure that you can add files to %programfiles%\app1 without receiving a prompt for elevated privileges. The solution must prevent harmful applications from making unwanted changed to the system.

What should you do?

A. Enable the built-in administrator account.

B. Modify the User Account Control (UAC) settings.

C. Add your user account to the local Power Users group.

D. Modify the permissions of the %programfiles%\app1 folder.

Answer: D



67. You have a computer named Computer1 that runs Windows 7. The computer is a member of an Active Directory domain. The network contains a file server named Server1 that runs Windows Server 2008.

You log on to the computer by using an account named User1.

You need to ensure that when you connect to Server1, you authenticate by using an account named Admin1.

What should you do on Computer1?

A. From User Accounts, select Link online IDs.

B. From Windows CardSpace, select Add a card.

C. From Credential Manager, select Add a Windows credential.

D. From Local Security Policy, modify the Access this computer from the network user right.

Answer: C



68. Your network has a main office and a branch office.

The branch office has five client computers that run Windows 7. All servers are located in the main office. All servers have BranchCache enabled.

Users at the branch office report that it takes several minutes to open large files located in the main office.

You need to minimize the amount of time it takes for branch office users to open files located in the main office. The solution must also reduce the amount of bandwidth used between the two offices.

What should you do?

A. At the main office, configure the Quality of Service (QoS) Packet Scheduler on all servers.

B. At the main office, configure the servers to use Background Intelligent Transfer Service (BITS).

C. At the branch office, configure the client computers to use BranchCache Hosted Cache mode.

D. At the branch office, configure the client computers to use BranchCache Distributed Cache mode.

Answer: D



69. You have a portable computer that runs Windows 7. You configure the computer to enter sleep mode after 10 minutes of inactivity.

You do not use the computer for 15 minutes and discover that the computer has not entered sleep mode.

You need to identify what is preventing the computer from entering sleep mode.

What should you do?

A. At a command prompt, run Powercfg –energy.

B. At a command prompt, run Systeminfo /s localhost.

C. From Performance Monitor, review the System Summary.

D. From Performance Information and Tools, review the detailed performance and system information.

Answer: A



70. You have a computer that runs Windows 7.

Your network contains a VPN server that runs Windows Server 2008.

You need to authenticate to the VPN server by using a smart card.

Which authentication setting should you choose?

A. CHAP

B. EAP

C. MS-CHAP v2

D. PAP

Answer: B

Points You Need to Know For Becoming MCITP Certified

As more and more people know Microsoft exams, and realize the benefit of gaining these certification, now many people choose to take these microsoft exams in order to make a great move in their career. MCITP is one of the most popular certifications awarded by Microsoft. This certification will help you demonstrate your range of expertise, practical skills, and a thorough knowledge of Microsoft technologies.

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The MCITP credential endorses the knowledge and skills of an IT professional with respect to performing a given job role including those like database administrator or enterprise messaging administrator. One of the most distinguishing features of this certification process is that it is built by Microsoft on the technical proficiency assessed by the MCTS certification. This fact will enable you get one or more MCTS certifications as you progress on your way to securing an MCITP credential.

While the MCITP credential enables IT professionals with a more focussed and simpler framework to display their technical and professional skills, some reputed MCITP certification training programs available on the net enables the candidates to systematically acquire the required knowledge and skills needed to make their cherished IT dreams come alive and besides easily securing a great paying job in the purview of the IT industry.

MCITP certification attests that the candidates have the necessary set of skills to deploy, build, optimize, design various applications operating technologies with respect to a particular job role and that they are capable of designing and making a number of technology decisions crucial to accomplish successful technology implementation projects.

One of the most important aspects that you need to note regarding this certification is that it also highlights your exclusive field of expertise as there are about twelve concentrations available within this one certification. This will help you distinguish yourself among other IT professionals by possessing the up-to-date skills and surpassing job-role capabilities to effectively work with a comprehensive set of Microsoft technologies.

When you searching the right site for getting trained for this certification, always look for programmes that are offered by certified instructors. This will help you with a quality education necessary to enhance your IT career. One of the greatest advantages of securing this certification is that you are actually letting the employers know that you are more capable than others to get the job done right. If you keep these above points in your heart when you are preparing for your exams, it's easy for you to gain your certifications.

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Microsoft 70-620 Exam

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Facebook, Microsoft Partnership Deepens With Skype Announcement

Facebook's new Skype integration is another marker in its long-deepening relationship with Microsoft, as both companies seek to battle Google.

When Microsoft acquired Skype for $8.5 billion in May, it kicked off a good deal of analyst chatter about how Redmond would choose to integrate the communications company’s assets into its product lineup.

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How exactly Skype will appear in products like Office 365 remains to be seen, but the acquisition could end up paying dividends for Microsoft in its competition against Google, by giving Facebook—in which Redmond owns a minority stake—another tool with which to battle for social-networking hearts and ad dollars.

Starting July 6, Facebook users can video-chat with one another using Skype. (The social network is also introducing a retooled people sidebar, supposedly to make initiating chats easier, as well as a way to initiate group instant messaging.)

“We are now making it possible to video chat with your friends right from within Facebook,” read a note on Skype’s corporate blog. “The partnership with Facebook makes fantastic business sense for Skype and gives us an unprecedented opportunity to offer Skype’s voice and video calling products to more than 750 million active users on Facebook.”

During a July 6 presentation at Facebook headquarters, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed his company had been working with Skype on the project for the past six months, before Tony Bates assumed the CEO slot or Microsoft announced the acquisition.

“This is going to be something that’s rolled out to everyone that you can integrate immediately,” he told the audience. “It’s so minimal and it’s so easy to use.”

More to the point, it offers Facebook a counter to Google’s own video-chat service, and perhaps even Apple’s FaceTime conferencing feature. Although Facebook and Apple aren’t direct competitors, the two companies apparently had a disagreement over allowing Apple’s Ping, a social-networking service centered on music, to import Facebook contacts. Facebook is also rumored to be prepping an HTML5 mobile-app platform that would conceivably challenge Apple’s App Store.

Last week, Google offered a limited number of people the ability to start a profile on Google+, its nascent social-networking service. The search-engine giant likely sees Facebook as its major competitor for online ad revenue, and CEO Larry Page has reportedly tied in employee bonuses to success in social networking. Whether or not Google+ becomes an existential threat to Facebook, it certainly raises the specter of increased competition—and boosts the pressure on Facebook to create new features that will hold its 750-million-member base.

Microsoft and Facebook have been deepening their relationship in recent months. When Microsoft decided to evolve its Bing search engine by “infusing the emotional into it,” in the words of Bing director Stefan Weitz, the company chose to do so by integrating Facebook features such as the “Like” button.

When users query Bing for specific people, for example, the search engine can offer Facebook information on the results page. If they’re traveling to a new city, such as Paris, Bing will tell them which Facebook friends live there. Bing will also notify users of airfare deals for places they’ve liked on Facebook, and let users post Bing Shopping pages on their Facebook wall (“Should I buy this?”).

In a March interview with eWEEK, Weitz suggested that the Web’s social layer has come to mimic the same sort of behaviors that people exhibit in the real world. Even before the addition of new social features, Facebook and Microsoft had already collaborated on Facebook Profile Search, which leveraged a user’s Facebook connections to deliver more relevant results for people searches; they could also post messages to their Facebook walls via Bing’s pages.

During his July 6 talk, Zuckerberg also painted a portrait of a Web increasingly focused on the social—specifically, the ability to share loads of content. “We’ve seen this trend since [Facebook] began,” he said. In terms of how much data people share with those in their social circles, “it’ll be about twice as much a year from now, and twice as much a year after that.” That will affect everything from app development to the tools that people use to interact.

Skype is evidently a vital part—at least for the moment—of that Facebook evolution, and Microsoft owns Skype. More than ever, Facebook and Microsoft find themselves bound together in a growing battle for the Web.

Top 8 ways feds (and corporate users) can take advantage of green IT

GAO report outlines key federal green IT initiatives
How does the federal government go about implementing green IT? According to a report out today from the Government Accountability Office, the feds have adopted a number of practices that are useful not just for government IT but all manner of private and public company IT groups as well. These include everything from dedicated funding for green products, to improved employee training and reducing use of paper.

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4. Procure IT equipment that meets the most stringent Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) standard available, if economically practical. EPEAT is a tool to help purchasers in the public and private sectors evaluate, compare and select electronic products based on their environmental attributes. EPEAT-registered products must meet 23 required environmental performance criteria. The products are then rated gold, silver or bronze based on whether the products met 75% or greater, 50% to 74%, or less than 50%, respectively, of 28 optional criteria. The three EPEAT level ratings differ to a small, but measurable, extent in their environmental benefits. As the GAO reported in 2009, if federal agencies replaced 500,000 non-EPEAT rated laptop computers and computer monitors with either EPEAT bronze-rated, silver-rated or gold-rated units, the federal government would achieve energy savings equivalent to 182,796 U.S. households, 183,151 households or 183,570 households, respectively. In the non-federal government sector, in March 2009 the city of San Francisco upgraded its environmental requirement for IT purchases to the EPEAT gold level as its procurement baseline whenever possible.

5. Provide appropriate personnel with sufficient green IT training. As part of a 2010 private-sector survey of federal chief information officers, industry officials also offered some observations, including that agencies should work with the Office of Personnel Management to improve the IT workforce. The survey noted that, in doing so, government organizations should use existing best practices, such as those found at the Department of Defense, to train employees and develop new leaders.

6. Evaluate and prioritize green IT options. With various green IT options available, lifecycle return on investment can be a useful tool for determining which options provide the greatest return on investment in an environment of reduced agency budgets. According to a 2009 survey of IT professionals by a national IT services and solutions provider, IT departments may be foregoing large, long-term savings by ranking factors such as cost over energy efficiency in their purchasing decisions. One recommendation from the survey is that organizations need to prioritize their actions based on costs and benefits.

7. Align green IT with the organization's budget. According to a 2007 industry report on creating a green IT action plan, green IT must fit within an organization's anticipated budget. In recognition of the importance of adequate funding to program success, the 2009 executive order states that, starting in fiscal year 2011, strategic sustainability efforts, which include electronics stewardship, should be integrated into the agency's strategic planning and budgeting process, including the agency's strategic plan.

8. Obtain senior management commitment. Senior management commitment can remove potential obstacles when implementing green IT initiatives and establishing goals. For example, according to a 2009 study of the key drivers of green IT, research showed that identifying an executive sponsor who will champion the green IT initiative will help to remove the road blocks to implementation.

Microsoft to release 13 patches covering 22 vulnerabilities next week

In another big Patch Tuesday, Microsoft will release 13 patches next week covering 22 vulnerabilities, including two critical patches to prevent remote code execution attacks in Windows and Internet Explorer. Three other less critical patches will close holes that would allow denial-of-service attacks on Windows, and a majority of the 13 patches will require a restart.

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Microsoft Office, .NET and Visual Studio will also be patched.

The 13 patches is a large total but short of the 16 released in June, and short of the record 17. However, nine of the 16 June patches were rated as critical, whereas only two this month merit the most severe rating. The 22 vulnerabilities to be closed this month is just a fraction of the record 64 set in April 2011.

Microsoft patching: Still painful after all these years

Only four patches were issued last month, because Microsoft alternates between big and small releases to relieve the pressure on IT administrators.

Bulletin #1 on next week's list of 13 looks to be the most serious, as it is rated critical on Windows 7, Vista and XP, Windows Server 2003 and 2008 (including R2, the most recent release), and Internet Explorer versions 6 through 9. The patch requires a restart and is designed to prevent remote code execution.

Bulletin #2 will also require a restart and prevent remote code execution, but is rated critical only on Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008 R2. The patch is rated only as important on Windows Server 2003, slightly unusual because Microsoft says vulnerabilities are typically less serious in newer versions of its products. The desktop versions of Windows are not affected.

Overall, nine patches affect Windows, one affects Internet Explorer, one affects Office, and two each affect the .NET Framework and Microsoft Developer Tools. Four of the 13 patches involve preventing remote code execution, three elevation of privilege, three prevent denial-of-service attacks, and three prevent information disclosure.

In other news, Microsoft released an annual security report which incorrectly claimed that vulnerabilities allowing remote code execution - a critical problem - are declining. Microsoft has since updated the report, and it turns out remote code execution flaws are actually on the rise, and the total number of reported vulnerabilities is rising as well.

We'll be back with more on the Microsoft Subnet after the patches are released Tuesday. Microsoft will issue them around 1 p.m. Eastern Time.

Dell Joins Hadoop Crowd With Cloudera Partnership

Dell will add new-generation PowerEdge C servers and networking components, services and its vast channel and sales networks to Cloudera's software in the new implementation.

Dell on Aug. 4 joined the growing Apache Hadoop commercial implementators' club by announcing a new partnership with Cloudera -- by far the oldest and most production-utilized distribution of the celebrated open source data analytics package.

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Cloudera's was the first commercial implementation of the open source data analytics package that came out of Yahoo's R&D division in 2006. For its part, Dell will supply new-generation PowerEdge C servers and networking components, services and its vast channel and sales networks to complete the new implementation.

Within those services, Dell will include management tools, training, technology support and other professional services.

"This is a defined reference architecture with a point of view that helps our customers very quickly identify a strategy for the implementation of a Hadoop presence inside of their corporation," Dell Executive Director of Cloud Solutions John Igoe told eWEEK.

"We see Cloudera is the leader in this particular space. Our vision was to combine their leadership in the Hadoop area with our leadership in hyperscale computing environments. We have a great deal of differentiation here by taking the abilities of both companies and putting them together."

Specifically, Dell/Cloudera for Apache Hadoop consists of Cloudera, Dell Crowbar software, and Cloudera Enterprise combined with a Dell PowerEdge C2100 server (other models will be added later) and PowerConnect 6248 48-port Gigabit Ethernet Layer 3 switch. Joint service (either Cloudera or Dell) and support and a deployment guide are also included.

Dell/Cloudera for Apache Hadoop can be used in many verticals but will be aimed first at financial services, energy, utility and telecom companies, research institutions, retail businesses, and Internet/media groups, Igoe said.

The new implementation is designed to reduce the complexity of deploying, configuring, and managing Hadoop systems that process large amounts of data enterprises can use to help manage themselves at a generally lower cost than older-school analytics packages and consultancies.

Making Hadoop More Usable Is the Goal

The bottom line is this: Hadoop is complicated software machinery to deploy and utilize, and it lacked a relatively usable front end until Cloudera and others came in to add their expertise. Dell's idea is to give customers a single source to deploy, manage, and scale a comprehensive Apache Hadoop-based stack, Igoe said.

There are a growing number of companies offering commercial implementations and/or providing support for Hadoop. Cloudera, IBM, Platform Computing were among the first to develop their own commercial Apache Hadoop implementations in recent years. EMC, NetApp, SGI and Yahoo (with its Hortonworks spinoff) are some of the others.

Igoe said the new reference architecture and all its hardware will be available later in August.

Microsoft patching: Still painful after all these years

We asked readers to tell us if Microsoft’s efforts have made the patching process any easier.
The spring of 2011 has seen some of the largest Microsoft Patch Tuesdays ever. In April, Microsoft tied its all-time record with 17 updates that fixed 64 vulnerabilities. In June, the company issued another biggie, with 16 updates that fixed 34 vulnerabilities.

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Microsoft knows that patching Windows, Office and its other software is a hardship on its users. The company says it has tried to limit the pain in a number of ways: setting aside a monthly day to issue patches, alternating months in which it issues many patches with months in which it issues fewer patches, and creating a rating system to help IT professionals know which patches to test and install first and which can wait. It issues a heads up on the patches the week prior to Patch Tuesday, too.

Have its efforts made patching systems any easier? We asked readers to tell us. Short answer: no. Readers say patching is a big a drain on resources as always. And this is true even for companies who have invested in third-party patch management tools. On the other hand, this also means that overall patching hasn’t gotten worse.

In a short survey of 171 IT professionals, we gleaned how people are handling patching.

The following series of PDFs includes the full survey responses, as well as some cross sections of the responses by company size and other factors.

Getting data from Outlook Address Lists into Excel

The Outlook Object Model
Before I get started on the topic of this article - how to get outlook address list data into Excel - a few words on Outlook. Unlike some other proprietary software, Outlook has been constrained by the need to be compatible with the rest of the world, to be forever backwards compatible, and yet to be moving forward with other application in the same Office Family. This means that over the years its object model has become labyrinthine, and difficult to navigate. Certainly new capabilities are continually added to give the developer new choices, but whilst all the old choices are still there too, we are both overwhelmed by the multiplicity of methods of doing the same thing and also frustrated that most are only partially implemented, leaving unexposed properties. This has led to a multitude of techniques to get the same information - as well as the use of other approaches like Redemption Objects and CDO to fill the gap. All in all, it's alphabet soup.

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Getting Data into Excel.
I had a need to get data into Excel , so that I could do some visualization work on various subsets of the global address list. Since I already have the capability to create Google Visualizations straight from Excel I figured I could do a one shot, "create visualizations straight out of Outlook" type of solution. First though, I needed to generalize and abstract data matching from Global Address List to Excel. As usual there is a downloadable example of this finished project for your use and comment.

Approach
In a sheet with column headings that match an abstracted view of the Outlook Address Book, one of the columns is going to contain the 'key'; (The unique item that is going to be used to find the contact information for each row in the table, for example the email address or the alias or some other outlook field). An inital sheet will look like this, in this case using the alias field as the key field to match on, and the task will be to populate the other columns from our exchange global address list.


Getting the data
In any VBA project, I generally abstract the sheet data from its physical location by using these Data Manipulation Classes. This abstraction of the worksheet is what will be used by the outlook classes. Another advantage of this is that changes are only made to the sheet at the very end, and are not committed if there was a problem during execution. Using this abstraction therefore makes rollback easy (actually unnecessary), and avoids messing around with application.screenupdating.

Creating a class to access outlook
To abstract the outlook address data from its underlying object model, I will create 2 new classes, cOutlookAddressBook (to perform the lookup and populate a cDataSet with matched data from the Outlook address book) and cOutlookApp (to kick off an outlook session). The code for these is below

'cOutlookApp
Option Explicit
Private pWasClosed As Boolean
Private pOutlookApp As Outlook.Application

Public Property Get OutlookApp() As Outlook.Application
Set OutlookApp = pOutlookApp
End Property
Public Function Init() As Boolean

Set pOutlookApp = GetObject(, "Outlook.Application")
'if it wasnt already running, create one
pWasClosed = pOutlookApp Is Nothing
If pWasClosed Then
Set pOutlookApp = New Outlook.Application
End If
Init = True

End Function
Public Sub Destroy()
Set pOutlookApp = Nothing
End Sub

'cOutlookAddressBook
Option Explicit
Private pAddressBook As Outlook.AddressList
Private pOutlookApp As cOutlookApp
Private pDirty As Boolean

Public Property Get AddressBook() As Outlook.AddressList
Set AddressBook = pAddressBook
End Property
Public Function Init(oa As cOutlookApp, sBook As String) As Boolean

Set pOutlookApp = oa
' open the requested address book
Set pAddressBook = pOutlookApp.OutlookApp.Session.AddressLists(sBook)
Init = True

End Function
Public Sub Destroy()
'nothing to do
End Sub
Public Function Populate(ds As cDataSet, target As String) As Boolean


Dim e As Outlook.AddressEntry, ex As Outlook.ExchangeUser, sh As String
Dim sl As String, dr As cDataRow, dc As cCell, sa As String, ltoGo As Long
' this is the target key
sl = LCase(target)
ltoGo = ds.RowCount
' clear out any existing data, except for key
For Each dr In ds.Rows
dr.CustomField = False
For Each dc In ds.Headings
If LCase(dc.toString) <> sl Then
dr.Cell(dc.Column).Value = vbNullString
End If
Next dc
Next dr

' since it takes a while to retrieve exchaneguser, we'll make that outer loop
For Each e In pAddressBook.AddressEntries
If ltoGo <= 0 Then Exit For ' if all done lets leave
Set ex = e.getExchangeUser
If Not ex Is Nothing Then
sa = LCase(getValue(e, ex, sl)) ' the key for this record
For Each dr In ds.Rows
If Not dr.CustomField Then ' used to determine whether we've been here already

If sa = LCase(dr.Cell(sl).toString) Then
' we have a match- we're using the custom field to track completion
dr.CustomField = True
ltoGo = ltoGo - 1

' need to fill in the lookup fields
For Each dc In ds.Headings
sh = LCase(dc.toString)
' not the key
If sh <> sl Then
dr.Cell(dc.Column).Value = getValue(e, ex, sh)
If pDirty Then Exit Function
End If
Next dc
End If


End If
Next dr
End If

Next e
Populate = True

End Function
Private Function getValue(e As Outlook.AddressEntry, ex As Outlook.ExchangeUser, colName As String) As String

getValue = vbNullString

Select Case colName
Case "alias"
getValue = ex.Alias
Case "firstname"
getValue = ex.FirstName
Case "lastname"
getValue = ex.LastName
Case "officelocation"
getValue = ex.OfficeLocation
Case "stateorprovince"
getValue = ex.StateOrProvince
Case "streetaddress"
getValue = ex.StreetAddress
Case "department"
getValue = ex.Department
Case "email"
getValue = ex.PropertyAccessor.GetProperty("http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/proptag/0x39FE001E")
Case "country"
getValue = e.PropertyAccessor.GetProperty("http://schemas.microsoft.com/mapi/proptag/0x3a26001e")

Case Else
MsgBox (colName & " data not implemented")
pDirty = True
End Select

End Function

Execution
To get a field filled in from outlook, just create a column with the name of the abstracted field. You will see from the code above it is pretty straightforward to add additional Outlook fields if they are not yet implemented in the example. Note that use is made of the exchangeUser object as well as the propertyAccessor method and that the column headings should exactly match the case statements in the getValue function, whose purpose is to abstract their Outlook Object model location away from the column data required.

The application procedure
Below is an example of an application that uses these classes (you can download from here) . It expects to execute on the active sheet, and the function, getLikelyColumnRange will assume that everything on the sheet is subject to lookup. You would also probably amend od.Populate(ds, "alias") to identify which is they key field to use for lookup.

Option Explicit
Const sBook = "Global Address List"
Public Sub getOutLookData()
Dim od As cOutlookAddressbook
Dim oa As cOutlookApp
Dim rData As Range, dSets As cDataSets, ds As cDataSet
' kick off an outlook session
Set oa = New cOutlookApp
If oa.Init Then
' get the required addresslist
Set od = New cOutlookAddressbook
If od.Init(oa, sBook) Then
' you could replace this with a dialogue to get the range to be processed
Set rData = getLikelyColumnRange
'create a cdataset of that range
Set dSets = New cDataSets
With dSets
.Create
.Init rData, , "data"
End With
Set ds = dSets.DataSet("data")
' now populate - will only actually commit to the sheet if all was well
' using the alias field/column as the key
If od.Populate(ds, "alias") Then
ds.Commit
End If

od.Destroy
Else
MsgBox ("Couldnt open address book " & sBook)

End If
' clear up
oa.Destroy
Set od = Nothing
Set oa = Nothing
Else
MsgBox ("Couldnt start outlook")
End If
End Sub

Summary
Finding data in the outlook object model was the most time consuming activity in all this. No doubt I (or you, if you make use of this code) will want to extend the getValue function to pick up more data from the address list, which could involve the use of PropertyAccessor.GetProperty() for properties normally unexposed in the Outlook Object Model. I had a lot of trouble finding definitive documentation on where to find what uses what, and reading this 'explanation' from Microsoft along with all the references in other articles to DASL,DAV ,Proptags, schemas and so on, made my head ache, so if anyone knows where to find something complete, simple and defintive - meaning a list of how to get every field displayed by the method ExchangeUser.Details, please comment on this article, or post it here.

Comments, improvements, discussion welcome as usual, and downloadable stuff related to this article is here. In a future article I will probably cover connecting all this to google visualizations right out of Outlook.