Vista is FASTER and better.

The videos in http://www.trainsignaltraining.com/windows-vista-vs-mac/2008-05-19/ is just another example of how people have created this bad rap for Vista without proper knowledge and understanding of what makes a great computer/laptop.

Here is my experience.

I had a tecra m5 i got in 2006. Recently Windows XP on it has started to be slower. Some drivers just did not work right.

Enter Vista: I replaced the OS with Vista Ultimate. The Tecra M5 is not 50% faster in everything. Outlook 2007 loads and shuts down so much faster. Shutting down and starting up the laptop is faster.

And the wonderful thing was, Vista provided all the drivers out of the box. If i was to install XP on this laptop, i had to get the drivers from Toshiba to make components(audio, WIFI, LAN etc) to work.

By the way it had 2GB RAM, 1.8Ghz and the video adapter that came with it. And yes AERO works :)

Posters for SharePoint

Get them here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2008/05/12/posters-for-sharepoint-stsadm-command-line-parameters-now-available.aspx

Planning Tool for Office Communications Server 2007

The planning tool is a guide to get started with planning a OCS 2007 delopyment topology.

There topologies provided are testing to work in the configuration provided. Some additional links and documentations are provided.

You can download the Planning Tool for Office Communications Server 2007 at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=06793661-cd69-4490-bb4b-e97dd271209d&displaylang=en

Heroes {Community} Launch

Heroes Community Launch 2008 is a joint product launch of the new family of Microsoft products - Windows Server 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008, organised by your local User Group.

This event promises to be a deep dive on some of the most interesting topics of the products and you'll be guaranteed not to walk away empty handed! This time, we've lined up 3 tracks, covering IT Pros, Developers and a special interest track which cuts across both tracks.

Click here --> http://www.sgdotnet.org/events/heroes08/default.aspx to see details, agenda and registration.

hotfixes and updates on Vista and Windows 2008

Description of how hotfixes and updates are managed after you upgrade to a service pack in Windows Vista and in Windows Server 2008:
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=951181

Want to store SharePoint in a file system compared to SQL Server 2005?

Read this: External Storing of Binary Large Objects (BLOBs) in Windows SharePoint Services

From my opinion, there are extra complexities and housekeeping tasks involved.

One thing to remember is this is a low cost option compare to SQL Server
Which means if somebody can afford SQL Server (and the disk space) then SQL is definitely a better choice.