Beginning this March from Microsoft:Kimberly L. Tripp SQL Server 2005 ITPro Webcast Series

If you're an IT professional wanting solid, valuable content and help with SQL Server 2005, your ship has landed in the form of an 11-part Webcast series brought to you by Microsoft. Kimberly L. Tripp of SQLSkills.com, a Microsoft MVP and Regional Director, is going share her knowledge and passion around building robust, recoverable and reliable SQL Server 2005 systems. Join the free Webcast every Friday starting March 10, 2006.

Visit here for more information.

Vista Versions Finally Finalized

It looks like Microsoft has made up its collective mind about the editions of Vista that will be offered, and as expected, there'll be no more Tablet PC or Media Center Edition.

The six core versions include: Starter Edition, Enterprise Edition, Home Basic, Home Premium, Business and Ultimate. There will also be two "N" versions (Home Basic N and Business N) that are customized to comply with the European Union's orders not to include Windows Media Player with the operating system.

Office 12 is Office 2007

Microsoft Corp. today announced the lineup of its upcoming 2007 Microsoft® Office system products, previously code-named Microsoft Office "12".

Details about the 2007 Microsoft Office system products, including press releases and white papers on new Office products, application naming, suite packaging, server lineup, and U.S. estimated retail prices, can be found online at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/presskits/2007office/default.mspx and http://www.microsoft.com/office/preview.

Microsoft buys FutureSoft Web-filtering software

FEBRUARY 09, 2006 (IDG NEWS SERVICE) - Microsoft Corp. Thursday said it was buying Web-filtering software called DynaComm i:filter from FutureSoft Inc.

DynaComm i:filter allows IT administrators to filter content coming through a company's network that has been deemed inappropriate or bandwidth-hogging. The software also protects users against spyware by blocking the download of executable files through Web browsers.

Exchange 12" beta will be in TechNet March Shipments!

Big news for TechNet Subscribers!

March disc shipments will include a special treat: a special beta release of the upcoming version of Exchange Server code-named “Exchange 12”.

Get over to http://www.microsoft.com/technet/subscription !

The Security Monitoring and Attack Detection Planning Guide

Found this Guide while reading a thread on Windows Log management.
Here is a quick brief description:

This guide is designed to help organizations plan a security monitoring and attack detection system based on Windows Security Event logs. It highlights how to interpret the events and which events indicate the possibility that an attack is in progress.

Overview
The Security Monitoring and Attack Detection Planning Guide is a practical support document for business and information technology professionals who are working to develop systems to monitor security on a network and to detect intruders. Its primary goals and objectives are to:

1. Introduce the concepts of security monitoring and attack detection.
2. List applications that can provide event log correlation.
3. Describe best practice activities and processes for developing a security monitoring and attack detection system.
4. Identify business, technical, and security issues for:
   Detecting policy violations
   Detecting external attacks
   Implementing forensic analysis
5. Design a security monitoring and attack detection solution that can identify when attacks on the network take place.
6. Provide the ability to implement data retention for Forensic Analysis.

Download it and start reading it. If not all, some parts of it maybe useful, for sure. Imagine starting to understand Forensic Analysis using Windows Log!!

Got domain logon problems ?

Get the tokensz. You could view propery of the Security TOken that is created during logon.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=4a303fa5-cf20-43fb-9483-0f0b0dae265c&DisplayLang=en#top

How do you estimate what a database size will be?

Windows XP SP3 Due Out in Second Half of 2007

(18 January 2006)

Microsoft has set a tentative release date of the second half of 2007 for Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) the professional and home editions.
Windows XP SP2 was released in 2004. Microsoft reportedly pushed back the release date for XP SP3 to allow them to concentrate resources on Windows Vista, which is scheduled to be released later this year.
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/printfriendly.htm?AT=39305800-39000001c
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/01/18/windows_xp_sp3_delay/
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle/servicepacks.mspx

From sans.org

The Smart Card Deployment Cookbook

Overview
Typically, a cookbook is a collection of recipes, or instructions, that explain how to do something and what you need to do it. This "cookbook" is a set of "recipes" for deploying smart cards in an enterprise that is deploying Microsoft Windows 2000 Active Directory. The white papers in this series will help you understand the principal smart card concepts and guide you through the planning tasks.
The cookbook is divided into three sections:
On This Page

About This Cookbook

Who Should Read This Series

Section 1: Smart Card Backgrounder

Section 2: Smart Card Deployment Planning Considerations

Section 3: Smart Card Deployment Scenario

Related Materials

Tool for creating packets

Engage Packet Builder:
http://www.engagesecurity.com/downloads/#engagepacketbuilder

You also need WinPCap for running Engage:
http://www.winpcap.org/install/default.htm

NEMESIS: http://www.packetfactory.net/projects/nemesis/
HPING: http://www.hping.org/

and google
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=packet+generation+tools+linux&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

When To Upgrade: Tips For Taking Best Advantage Of Microsoft's Release Cycle

Two Avanade consultants outline ways to calculate when to adopt an
operating system upgrade and when it's better to let new software pass
you by.
http://cwflyris.computerworld.com/t/184636/1448126/4116/0/

MBSA 2.0 Scripting

Sample scripts that illustrate how to extend MBSA 2.0 for greater scalability during scanning and report rollup.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=3b64ac19-3c9e-480e-b0b3-6b87f2ee9042&displaylang=en

SNARF Articles

SNARF Articles

"Too Many E-Mails? SNARF Them Up!" by Rob Kreis. Microsoft Research News & Highlights. November 30, 2005.
"Microsoft Research tool 'snarfs' up unwanted e-mail" by Elizabeth Montalbano. Computerworld. December 1, 2005
"SNARF Makes Social Sense of E-Mail" by Susan Kuchinskas. InternetNews. December 1, 2005.
"SNARFing your way through e-mail" by Ina Fried. CNet News.com. December 2, 2005.

Created within Microsoft Research, the Social Network and Relationship Finder, or SNARF

Microsoft tool 'snarfs' up unwanted e-mail.
The software prioritizes mail from friends and regular contacts

Step-by-Step Guide to Clustering Windows 2000 and SQL Server 2000

Article by Brian Knight at sqlservercentral.com

Summary:
In this next article of the SQL Server in the Enterprise Series, we'll explore how to cluster Windows 2000 and SQL Server 2000 in a step-by-step manner. After this article, you should be able to cluster a SQL Server 2000 machine for failover availability in an Active/Active cluster.

Windows Leads As Server Market Booms

For the first time, Microsoft Windows was the leading operating system in new servers in the third quarter, as the overall worldwide server market grew a robust 8.1%, IDC said Tuesday.


/Gill

Enterprise firewall configuration for Exchange ActiveSync Direct Push Technology

&A: Microsoft’s Flessner touts ‘game changers’ in SQL Server 2005

NOVEMBER 11, 2005 (COMPUTERWORLD) - SAN FRANCISCO -- Paul Flessner, senior vice president of server applications at Microsoft Corp., said the “game changers” that will set SQL Server 2005 apart from the competition’s databases are the integration of the company’s Visual Studio development environment and business intelligence capabilities. Flessner spoke with Computerworld here at this week’s launch event for SQL Server, Visual Studio 2005 and BizTalk Server 2005. Excerpts follow:

Microsoft Previews Windows Live and Microsoft Office Live

Microsoft Corporation today previewed two new sets of software-based services that utilize the Internet to deliver rich and seamless experiences to both individuals and small businesses. Windows Live and Microsoft Office Live are two new offerings that combine the power of software plus services and provide natural complements to the Microsoft Windows operating system and Microsoft Office products. In particular, Windows Live helps bring together all the elements of an individual's digital world while Office Live will help small companies do business online. With over 40 million small businesses worldwide, partners will be able to tap into the tremendous opportunity to use Office Live as a platform for extending their own small business solutions in a scalable and cost-effective manner as well as apply their expertise to customize and extend solutions for Office Live.