I have a new blog so this blog is now closed down! 

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http://steves.businessblog.com/

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If you want to know why I switched have a look here

http://steves.businessblog.com/blog/_archives/2004/8/25/129522.html

- Posted by Steve Richards - 7:56:34 PM - comment []

Absolute goldmine, lists every OS you can image and provides details on whether its works on Virtual PC.  I was pretty amazed by the list, especially compared with VM Ware.  Where a product has issues it also has notes of workarounds.  Even better if you want to keep up to date with the latest additions there is an RSS feed.

Also if like me you have VMWare Workstation, GSX Server and VPC then this is a good review to help you decide which to use.  I also suggest checking out the comments on the review.

- Posted by Steve Richards - 10:26:41 PM - comment []

eWeek reports that Wyse, (a long term user of Windows embedded technologies), is now moving into Linux in a bigway.

"Linux has really grown, and has become 20 percent of the worldwide thin-client marketplace,"

What actually suprised me was that the market share was so low, given that Linux seems to be a perfect fit for the embedded market, but clearly it takes time for things to catch on.

- Posted by Steve Richards - 1:52:55 PM - comment []

I described my Office in a previous post.  In this post I thought I would provide a bit on insight into my home network.  The following diagram should give you the basic idea.

1. The hub of the network is a little 4 port 100MB switch.  All three servers and one laptop are plugged into this
2. There are two dedicated servers on the network
1. Server 1 is a dedicated application server.  It only runs Windows 2003 Server and GSX Server 3.1.  All application servers and some test desktops run on top of GSX server.
2. Server 2 is a dedicated management server, and Active Directory domain controller.  This server runs the MOM Express 2005, and acts as a backup of my main file server, using Windows 2003 Volume Shadow Copy.
3. My desktop PC also happens to run Windows 2003 server, as this allows me the flexibility to access it via Windows Terminal Services from anyhwere in the house, mirror my data files, and also runs as AD domain controller for resiliance.  It also runs VMWare Workstaton.
4. When I need access to my company network, I run up a corporate standard PC in a VM on my Desktop Server and VPN from there, (VMware allows me to share files between my Corporate network and my PC network, with full network isolation).
5. The Pinter/Scanner is plugged into the management Server and the Desktop application server, one connection via USB and the othere via parallel.
6. For flexible use around the house and offsite I also have a laptop which runs Windows XP Professional, but can access Linux from the VMWare application server.  The laptop and my PDA both connect via WIFI.
7. My eldest daughters both have PC's.  One laptop and one desktop both connected via WIFI.
8. All machines are part of the home AD Domain and use roaming profiles.
9. All data access except from my desktop server is via DFS
10. All print access is via my desktop server
11. Windows Terminal services is used extensively by everyone in the family
12. My desktop has three screens all driven from my desktop server.  One display via analogue, one via DVI and one via a virtual display adaptor from Maxivista.
13. I have a KVM switch that allows my Keyboard, Mouse and Secondary display to be connected to either my desktop server or my application server for console access, although its more convenient most of the time just to leave a Windows Terminal Server session open.

In a future post I will explain a bit about my home lab, which is all virtual for maximum flexibility and runs a mix of Windows and Linix servers and clients.  I will also expand a bit on my desktop application environment and security.

- Posted by Steve Richards - 7:35:51 PM - comment []

I have thought for a long time that Microsoft don't make much use of their own software to build pre-integrated solutions for their customers, (unlike Oracle for example).  They seem to have caught onto the idea at last, (not from listening to me though :-)).  Anyway a few months ago they started to talk about solution accelerators, which are solutions built from sets of MS products with associated processes, procedures and best practices as well as custom systems integration.  These solve particular business problems, like for example, the process of hiring new employees.  There is also evidence that Microsoft is doing the same at the infrastructure level where the range of tools available to them is even richer, SQL Server, BizTalk, SharePoint etc.  This is a good example:

Microsoft also plans to make available to enterprise partners a "zero touch provisioning" accelerator that will enable end users to self-service tasks such as requesting the installation of an application or resetting a network password.

"We built in a rules-based engine based on BizTalk that can automate requests, get approved by a manager, and install a new application," Hassall said. "And the opportunity is not just for desktop deployment but add-ons for server infrastructure using SMS and Active Directory and BizTalk in providing an infrastructure for installation and provisioning services."

The company also plans to make available to enterprise partners a "zero touch provisioning" accelerator that will enable end users to self-service tasks such as requesting the installation of an application or resetting a network password.

"We built in a rules-based engine based on BizTalk that can automate requests, get approved by a manager, and install a new application," Hassall said. "And the opportunity is not just for desktop deployment but add-ons for server infrastructure using SMS and Active Directory and BizTalk in providing an infrastructure for installation and provisioning services."

Microsoft's latest marketting phrase - Integrated innovation is starting to mean something.  If you want to see more on this topic then enter "integrated innovation", into the search box on the left, include the quotes!

- Posted by Steve Richards - 11:32:33 PM - comment []

Microsoft research have come up with some really cool tools for capturing and manipulating whiteboard contents captured using low quality web cams.  My whiteboard is right behind me, (so my web cam points right at it, so it would work just great, but the downloads are MS only.  The best trick is it removes the person writing on the board from the image.  Here are some of the key points:

Other systems use expensive cameras or dedicated electronic whiteboards. The Live Whiteboard system, developed at Microsoft Research by Zhengyou Zhang and Li-wei He, uses whatever whiteboard you already have. It only needs an inexpensive Web cam and some clever software.

Live Whiteboard doesn't just deliver a video stream of the whiteboard. The software takes out all the shadows and uneven surfaces that come through on a Web cam, and turns the whiteboard into an image that allows viewers to see the whiteboard notes. Through a series of image processing procedures, the originally captured image is first transformed into a rectangular bitmap to correct perspective distortion, and then color-enhanced to increase contrast, saturation, and to provide a clean uniform white background.

In addition, if the remote viewer wants to focus his attention only on the content, the system can take out the image of the person who is writing on the board. The remote viewer sees only the new content magically appearing, he never sees the person who is writing the content. This saves even more bandwidth.

The full news article can be found here, and the web site for the developer with more info and the research reports can be found here.

- Posted by Steve Richards - 11:15:25 PM - comment []

I have been quite happy with my two monitor setup at home,  but using maxivista I am now able to drive three monitors from my main desktop PC.  This is just great.  I can now have my email in one, my RSS feeds in another, be using Office in another etc.  I am also using a lot of virtual PC's and I can have these displaying on different monitors.  So I can have RedHat on one monitor and SUSE on another and still be using Office on my third.  It really must have driven my productivity up 20% when I am doing this sort of work, which is probably 50% of the time.  That's at least £100/day.  A staggering return on investment - the third monitor, (old laptop), was being scrapped and Maxivista is about $40!!

The other great advantage is that your concentration and focus is not disrupted, you might think it would be, but it seems that by not switching applications all the time, and by being able to focus on the task at hand on your primary screen, the other two monitors just provide supporting information.

We really must get more people to understand the value proposition of multiple screens!  

- Posted by Steve Richards - 12:25:58 AM - comment []

I was wondering a few weeks ago why the Tablet PC team were moved into the Mobile and Embedded Devices division in Microsoft.  Then I saw this web page and the array of Tablet format devices and I realised why!  Theres a very good write up of recent news from the Embedded developers conference here.  More links to Windows powered devices can be found below:

• Tablet PC
  
• Pocket PC
  
• Media Center PC
  
• Smart picture frame
  
• Portable Media Center
  
• Smartphone
  
• Windows Automotive
  
• Gametrac gaming device
  
• SPOT watch
  
• Windows-powered cash register at store
  
• iCEBOX kitchen PC and home controller

- Posted by Steve Richards - 5:28:53 PM - comment []

I had some very good news today.  I am to be working for most of my time for probably 6 months or more on alternative desktop solutions,  looking at what the viable alternatives are to the Microsoft Desktop solution.  This is an end to end review, ie not just looking at the Operating System, but at:

1. The operating system
2. The layered personal productivity tools
3. Integration with peripherals and PDA's
4. The service and systems management tools
5. The security tools
6. The integration issues
7. Application compatability and portfolio migration issues
8. The data and personality migration issues
9. The TCO issues
10. The user change/culture change issues
11. Changes to my companies service model and associated technologies
12. Some of the issues that result from running a mixed environment, or a parallel environment, for example VMware hosted
13. The architectural changes, eg thick or thin client, application delivery approaches
14. Some of the strategic differences including those that arise from the different motivations of Microsoft and the alternatives
15. The decision making process that a client needs to go through before choosing to go the alternative route

I won't be posting much more detail than this in my blog, but you can expect some of the key questions that I am asking myself to be posted along the way as I try and pick my way through such a lot of different factors.  Its quite interesting to be starting work on this just a day after my posting on Zealots!

If you look at my blog on posts related to this topic, these are the most important:

Zealots

Rich Versus Reach - my perspective

Personal Information Disaster!

Which Office Suite?

Microsoft: Linux isn't cheaper

More integration of Microsoft Products?

Who will Longhorn appeal to?

In pursuit of personal and team productivity

- Posted by Steve Richards - 2:33:08 PM - comment []