Microsoft has released a tool for cleaning malware that boots from USB or CD. It’s called System Sweeper. So if you’re in need… It’s still in beta stage, but a beta is better than nothing.
And don’t forget Microsoft’s free anti-virus tool, Security Essentials.
I use Forefront, which is the corporate version of SE. No problems so far with 8 different employees and 3 servers.
The Portland event is this coming Thursday. It’s been sold out for a couple weeks, but you might be able to crash the party… 
Having used Solaris and Oracle products in an Enterprise environment, I can’t say that I am surprised. When the rumors of Oracle’s purchase of Sun, I realized Java was dead. “The End of Innovation” should have been the headline.
Why?
Sun was bleeding money, badly. They had lost focus and drive. A hardware company that also does operating systems and supports an open source development platform? WTF? (Almost sounds like Microsoft, but in reverse). I digress. Sun needed a buyer. The existing model wasn’t working. If it had, they wouldn’t have been bought out. Right? Right.
Oracle has NEVER been an open company. Big Larry learned early that once you’ve got their data, no company is interested in moving to a new platform. A decade ago Microsoft’s SQL Server wasn’t as stable as Oracle. It couldn’t scale up “enough” to handle the data load. Oracle had a better product. (The religious zealots enter stage left.) A different kind of deal with the devil was the only real option for some organizations.
So here we are. The Open Source movement has suffered a huge set back. It may not be noticeable today, but I believe we are swinging the pendulum in the other direction. And I thought SCO’s legal actions were distasteful.
The King is dead.
Long live the King.
Yesterday, ScottGu blogged about new VS 2010 Productivity Power Tool Extensions. Having wholly bought into the power of the Extension Manager, I think this add-on is another must-have for VS 2010.
If you already know you want it, you can download the extension here.
Enjoy!
PS: Don’t forget to RSVP for the Portland Visual Studio 2010 Community Launch event at Fiserv on June 17th. The first 200 people in the door will receive free, preauthorized access for Microsoft WebSpark. More info at the PADNUG website. Here is the link to RSVP directly.
There are days when I reeeeeeally like dealing with Microsoft. Today is one of those days. Under the terms of my BizSpark license, I can legally install Microsoft Dynamics GP. It’s a huge accounting package if you didn’t know. The point is that we can use a fully featured accounting package for $0 instead of having to deal with the small business offerings from PeachTree or Intuit.
We are currently using Quick Book Business something 2009 blah, blah, blah… I loath Intuit and their pricing policies.
“Why does Quick Books 2009 complain every time I fire it up?”
“The 2009 version doesn’t support Win7. You’ll have to buy the upgrade.”
“What’s the deal with this rounding error? There are posts all over your support site about a bug adding a penny to transactions”
“We have a fix for that but you’re not paying for support so we can’t help you.”
“So you have a known defect in your product. You have a patch for the defect and you will not release it without a $80 annual fee.”
“That’s correct sir. There are two other ways to resolve the problem. Re-enter all of your transactions, by hand or purchase the latest version of our product. Sorry”.
No thanks. I’ll find something else. Maybe something from Microsoft.
I’ll be the first to admit no application is perfect. I am sure there are weaknesses in GP, but service packs are FREE from Microsoft. And if you do think there is a bug, they have a process to report it and get it fixed for all users. If I request support and the issue is found to be a defect, I pay nothing for the support ticket. If I screwed something up, then I pay the fee to get help getting it fixed. This seems a lot more up front and honest than what Intuit is doing.
Microsoft has yet another new initiative. Ramp Up This site is geared toward giving developers fast-track learning. If you need to learn about mobile development, you can find a module to help. Learning ASP.Net, covered. Blah, blah, blah. It might be useful. It might be more marketing garbage. I don’t know enough to comment on that issue at the moment.
Then there’s always the .Net University. I learned about this one today as well. Again, I don’t know enough to comment on its usefulness.
Windows 7 is available on MSDN. Let the downloading begin!
Microsoft has a toolkit with dll for seeing all of the Office 2007 Add-In installed on a machine. I have been looking for some method for determining if a ribbon correctly loaded within Excel 2007. Read more…
Microsoft has a free add-in to the Office 2007 suite for saving files in a PDF.
You can go to http://microsoft.com/downloads and search for the add-in or click here
