Update: Unfortunately due to unprecedented demand, Microsoft have reached the capacity for User Group discounts and we are unable to accept any new requests. Early-bird registration is open until July 26 (5PM AEST), and regular registration is open until September 7th. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

It's July again! Which, amongst other things, means it's getting cold. In unrelated news, TechEd Australia is just two very short months away.

As usual, we at AuTechHeads are super excited about this conference and the opportunities it provides for geeks such as us.

We are pleased to be able to offer a substantially discounted ticket to our members on behalf of Microsoft Australia. If you're a member of AuTechHeads, simply register your details in the form (closes August 2) and we will pass your details on to the generous folk at Microsoft.

Once Microsoft receive the minimum number of user group registrations (just thirty - so we're quietly confident) the offe ...

Yesterday, Microsoft released the Windows 8 Developer Preview to the general public - Microsoft's first public release of their new Windows operating system. We have seen hints of the new OS in screenshots leaked and posted on their blog, so naturally plenty of people jumped at the chance to grab a functional copy of the new Windows operating system. You can grab yours from here.

Lots has been made of Microsoft's new OS, including what it needs to do to stay competitive against Apple's OS's in both the desktop and mobile space. Microsoft has announced that Windows 8 will be the same platform across x86/64 desktop devices and ARM-based mobile devices - importantly, tablets and mobile phones, which Microsoft entered recently with the Windows Phone 7 operating system.

There's plenty to remember when reviewing any software that is essentially still in Alpha, or brand new Beta. Importantly, it's not complete software. Many people often review software at this stage as completed software, wh ...

So we've told you of the pre-party competition to win an iPad 2.

We've told you about the opportunity to win a 5 day Microsoft course from DDLS.

What more could you possibly want??? Okay, what about one for the developers among you?

Our returning sponsor Telerik has generously thrown us a license for the Telerik Ultimate Collection for .NET! An award winning package with best-of-breed UI and productivity controls from Telerik, one of the masters of rapid application development! It retails for $1,999 USD on their website, with around $8,000 worth of value!

We use the Ultimate Collection at my work, and it was an essential part of our open source Snomtastic project. Telerik controls are used throughout the AuTechHeads site, too. There's simply no doubt that Telerik know their stuff, that they really deliver solutions that simplify application deployment, and that this is a seriously awesome prize!

To win, you must be at the AuTechHeads Pa ...

The AuTechHeads Party page is up, and that can only mean on thing - you need to RSVP ASAP!

Whether you're going to Tech.Ed Australia 2011, or just happen to be in or near the Gold Coast on 30th August, you're invited to the free AuTechHeads Party 2011 by Thycotic! Free food, free drink, music, networking, socialising, and prizes - an awesome introduction to the Tech.Ed week, and a great way to connect with other IT pros and develoeprs!

Last year was a blast, and this year is sure to keep you wanting more! We have a fabulous lineup of new and returning sponsors, including our new naming sponsor Thycotic, makers of the awesome Secret Server!You'll see them around the site for a while through the sponsorship arrangement.

We couldn't do a free event like this without our sponsors, and each and every one has been more than happy to support AuTechHeads, and we can't thank them enough. So as usual, we ask you to as well! Check in to the Party page soon for their sponsor pa ...

I recently blogged about my experiences with Cloudflare, a cloud-based service that offers increased performance and security for your website. In the post, I touched on an issue with the IP address presented to web application, which would be Cloudflare IP addresses as a result of the reverse proxying that the service performs. I mentioned that there was a solution presented by Cloudflare to correct the IIS logs, but this didn't address the presentation of IP addresses to web applications.

This is by no means a unique issue. It's not uncommon for reverse proxying to present the proxy server's address to a webserver, and in fact the solution described for IIS logs originally arose from the use of F5 load balancers. To get more technical, the issue is that the webserver - in this case, IIS - sets the HTTP header REMOTE_ADDR to the IP of the reverse proxy. This is entirely correct from the standpoint of a webserver interacting with a web browser client, but it doesn't help for correctly identifying t ...

It's been a good week of discovering cloud services for me. I just blogged about Cloudflare, but I also wanted to talk about a piece of software I recently discovered that makes my life incredibly easier - Gladinet.

 I have used cloud services for personal backup for a while - whether Dropbox for my Android phone (using a feature of Titanium backup) or Windows Live Mesh to sync my working documents across Windows machines, I've found cloud services incredibly helpful to ensure I'm backed up at all times. When I'm at home, SyncToy takes a secondary copy of my documents to my Windows Home Server - which I can then access via Microsoft's online WHS service - but the cloud gives me an essential offsite backup capability that gives me a great deal of peace of mind.

The problem with Dropbox and Live Mesh is that they're quite limited in space. Dropbox gives you 2Gb free, with the ability to expand slightly by inviting friends to the service, or to pay for more storage on a monthly basis. Liv ...

From an IT Pro's perspective, website security and performance can be a real pain. More often than not, you're not responsible for the website's code, yet you're responsible for its operation. Even the best developer can sometimes leave security holes and less-than-stellar performance in your lap ... and sadly, a lot of developers aren't anywhere near "the best". Paula Bean might be brillant, but it doesn't mean she should be allowed near your precious website.

 But let's not pick on developers. The ever-changing nature of the web, the constant demand for new and innovative solutions, working with a bunch of nongs who have no appreciation for proper coding standards - I can understand all of this well, and the frustration behind the humour on sites like The Daily WTF is very evident from both developers and IT pros alike. I'm a frequent reader.

 Like any aspect of IT security, websites are an ongoing concern that need continual review and improvement. I'm hardly a security expert ...

IIS 7.x, included with Windows 2008 and up, does a much better job out of the box at optimising website performance. For example, static and dynamic compression are enabled by default - a major improvement - and the defaults for compression are reasonably good.

There is still more tuning that can be done, though. I've found it necessary to hunt around for these optimisations, so I thought I'd present them here in one place, in the hope that it's of use to someone! This isn't intended to be a comprehensive guide, but rather a pointer at a number of common settings that it's useful to know about and consider using.

First stop - advanced settings for your application pool. The below shows some sample settings, which aren't actually derived from the AuTechHeads website settings but from a test instance - note that these are dependent on application, and your mileage may vary. You should test these before putting into production!

The bolded items ab ...

The Microsoft DPE Evangelism Academy (of which I am a member, woo!) are presenting a TechEd Australia 2011 Preview morning on Friday 29th July from 8:00am to 9:30am.

This event (which is catered!) will give you a preview of 7 official TechEd Australia 2011 sessions.  I will be presenting on SCCM 2012, specifically all the fun and joy you can have with User Device Affinity :-)

Places are limited and registration is important, so head over here for more information, and I hope to see you there.

So ... the Sony Playstation Network had a serious breach, and it's been down for over a week. I'm not telling you anything new, that you can't find all over the Internet, and which is covered in exquisite detail. That's by no means the intent of my post. My intent is to highlight exactly how this is a massive security failure.

It took them a week to notify users that customer details had been breached. That's something that cannot - and should not - be ignored. Based on the latest FAQ, we know that the personal details of Sony's customers was not encrypted - but the credit card table, containing credit card number and expiry dates, was. Be under no illusion - this is a massive failure, and privacy breach, on the part of Sony. Worse still - they are being deliberately disingenuous about the information they're revealing. The lack of encryption and sanitisation on private details is a serious concern. And using "but the credit card table was encrypted" is an attempt to falsely assure those ...

As geeks¹, we NEED the latest SpankySoft hardware. We CRAVE it.  We’d sacrifice our first-born (or favourite pet) for it, and unsurprisingly, this is where the wife² acceptance factor starts to emerge. As a rule, partners like to be involved in purchasing decisions, and they don’t often share the irrational ‘MUST HAVE’ gene that seems endemic to the geek population. Also, they tend to like the kids/pets/neighbours/rest of mankind.

So when the SpankyPhone 5 comes out, hailed by the company’s CEO as the greatest thing since frontal lobotomies, these lucky geeks who have access to sex suddenly find that they have to deal with a new factor beyond “I have money and I want it” – one that might actually prefer the lobotomy option. Congratulations. You’ve just run into the Wife Acceptance Factor.

The Wife Acceptance Factor, according to legend, emerged back in the dawn of time

The Open Source Developer Conference (OSDC) 2010 is being held in Melbourne. And like in previous years, Microsoft is one of the sponsors – and I will be attending. Right after I get off the plane to Pycon New Zealand.

The Pre-day will be held at the same venue (The Abbotsford Convent) on Tuesday 23rd November 2010

Initially as a random idea, that quickly sprouted into reality, Microsoft is sponsoring a PHP Pre-day. Having used PHP for nearly 10 years, now is a very interesting time. Different Frameworks and Content Management systems such as Joomla!, Drupal, Cake and WordPress (to name a few) and the maturation of the language itself makes keeping abreast time consuming.

There is no cost to attend, nor to present. Food, etc has been kindly sponsored by Microsoft. You will not be borg’d and powerpointed to death with Microsof ...

Since 1991, the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC10) has been the epicenter of Microsoft’s
biggest platform announcements. Leading-edge developers and architects gather to hear about the next
generation of Microsoft developer technologies.  The PDC isn’t just about content and sessions – it’s an
opportunity for you to talk with similar developers and technology leaders involved in making strategic
deci ...

This post is in reply to Nathanael Boehm’s UX for System Architects.

System Architecture is in many ways similar to traditional Engineering or Architecture.
In both cases the end result is almost always going to be used by somebody (Even if it’s just the maintenance team).
In both cases the client will have a number of explicit requirements – I want a three bedroom, two story house, I only have $400k to spend. There will also be a huge number of implied or hidden requirements – The external doors need to be on ground level, the roof mustn’t blow off in the first rain storm.

Knowing these requirements lets an Architect produce a design that meets the requirements as best as possible. Sane Architects will include some flexibility into the design – say having stronger joists than absolutely required so another floor can be added later.

Even with the most flexible design, there are some fundamentals that can’t be ...

As this is my first post on AUTechHeads, I should probably introduce myself. I'm Paul, the lead developer on a free, open-source social media client for Windows (used by some of the core AUTechHeads team!) -  MahTweets. For other tidbits about me, you can visit my blog or follow me on Twitter. For clarification, when I refer to "we" in this post - I mean the MahTweets crew (MahApps).

Currently when you go to install MahTweets, you’re greeted with this less than reassuring dialog:

Unknown publisher? Well, you should know it’s from the MahTweets team, but you can’t be certain – the next beta of MahTweets will be signed properly so a known publisher will appear (or you can be sneaky and install our nightlies auto-generated by TeamCity+MSBuild, which is what this article is all about!). Once done, you’ll see a dialog more like this:

First step is getting the verified publisher parts working. For that, I highly recomme ...

Open source gets a mention nearly every day in the ICT industry. There are really cool programs out there that are open source, but what does that actually mean?

For one, open source allows any developer to access the code of the application and use it for their own purposes. There are no boundaries set that prevent another developer from changing the code to match their needs, they can change the application completely and create a new similar application, then add that to the open source community, for everyone to share and use.

Effectively, all of the applications created in open source are the property of the community, not one individual. Further to this, there are companies who run parallel development teams, one in open source, and a second team to create COTS software packages. (COTS, or Commercial Off The Shelf products may have a grounding in open source, but the code isn't open, unless you specifically ask for access to it, and the manufacturer is prepared to give you access to i ...

Note: This article is a cross-post from Demonic Talking Skull

With the tag line “Share the web love”, REMIX10 kicked off in Melbourne today, and while the event is geared towards developers and designers, there are important cross-overs with what IT pros face every day, and important lessons to be learned.

Straight after the keynote, event organiser Michael Kordahi had a “lounge” session with various industry and development specialists, talking about different aspects of the development and design industries.

One fellow conversationalist was Shane Morris, a user experience (UX) professional who recently left Microsoft to start his own company, Automatic Studio.  The topic of conversation turned to the “top tips” which designers should bear in mind when creating projects for customers, and two particular gems of wisdom which Morris passed on will re ...