Monday, December 28, 2009

Microsot's FastStart Kit for UC

Did you know about the FastStart Kit from Microsoft on Unified Communications?
This is especially very useful when working on pre-sales with customer, especially in the Architectural Design Sessions (ADS).

Microsoft has developed a number of pre-sales supporting materials with their FastStart kits. This helps the sales/project team to present ADS in light of an individual product capability possessing the most potential for high impact with the client. Some of them are:
Unified Messaging
Security
Voice and Conferencing

These kits provide a great deal of guidance and content that may be heavily leveraged when creating deliverables for an ADS project. Each provides architecture with emphasis on a particular client interest or concern and each contains a comprehensive execution guide, ADS PowerPoint presentation, Discussion Guide, and FAQ document.

Here are some download links:

Unified Communications – Voice and Conferencing FastStart Kit
Unified Communications – Security FastStart Kit
Unified Communications – Unified Messaging FastStart Kit

OCS R2 Enhances Unified Communications - Unified Communications Strategies Views - Unified Communications Strategies - Print View

OCS R2 Enhances Unified Communications - Unified Communications Strategies Views - Unified Communications Strategies - Print View: "OCS R2 Enhances Unified Communications"

Friday, December 18, 2009

ISA 2006 SP1 Configuration with Exchange 2010

Here is a very precise document on how to configure ISA 2006 SP1 for Exchange 2010

http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2009/12/17/453625.aspx

Unify Square Introduces Comprehensive Reporting/Billing and Bandwidth Management Product Suite for Enterprise Office Communications Server

Unify Square, a leading services and solutions firm in Unified Communications (UC) and Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS), announced today a software product suite designed to help global enterprises optimize their UC investments by monitoring and driving OCS usage, integrating with billing and chargeback information, and enabling comprehensive bandwidth planning across the enterprise

Read more here .. http://newsblaze.com/story/2009121713282100002.mwir/topstory.html

i am presenting at Microsoft Singapore's Community Technology Update, 19 Dec 09

http://mstechevents.sg/ViewEvent.aspx?eventId=279.

Thursday, December 03, 2009

Black Screen of Death on Windows 7 official statement

“The reports on the so called “Black Screens” was investigated by Microsoft and found to be inaccurate. The company which issued the report has apologized and made a full retraction. Windows 7 security updates was not the cause of the black screens. There is no fix or update necessary for this, but customers should keep their anti-virus software up-to-date as a preventative measure. So far, Microsoft is not seeing an occurrence of this particular issue in our support channels locally.

Misleading report on Black Screen of Death on Windows 7

I would like to bring your attention to inaccurate stories following a report by a British company claiming that customers who deployed the Windows 7 November Security updates have experienced the so-called “Black Screens” that would render the system unbootable and unusable due to changes in the registry.

Here’s the background for your reference:
Microsoft has found these reports to be inaccurate. Comprehensive investigation has shown that none of the recently released updates are related to the behavior described in the reports. Microsoft’s support organization is also not seeing this as an issue. The claims also do not match any known issues that have been documented in our security bulletins.

On December 1, Prevx, the company which issued the report, posted an apology to Microsoft which stated the following: “Since more specifically narrowing down the cause we have been able to exonerate these patches from being a contributory factor.”

According to Microsoft’s blog post, the real culprit is a piece of malware that clears desktops and produces a black screen on infected PCs; various security vendors have tools for removing this malware. There is no fix or update necessary for this, but customers should keep their anti-virus software up-to-date as a preventative measure.

So far, Microsoft is not seeing a massive occurrence of this particular issue in our support channels. If customers do encounter an issue with a security update, contact our Customer Service and Support group for no-charge assistance at http://support.microsoft.com/security.

The protection and well-being of Microsoft's customers’ PCs through the deployment of Security Updates is the ultimate goal of the Microsoft Security Response Center.

Because of this, Microsoft continually work with their Customer Service and Support teams to keep a close eye for issues that may impact customers’ deployment of security updates.

Consumers can also download Microsoft Security Essentials provided free.