Once again I made the trek to Microsoft Tech.Ed this year and it was the best it’s been in a while.

I arrived on Sunday night and attended the Technical Pre Conference Training over Monday / Tuesday. I completed training in System Centre Configuration Manager 2012 and am extremely impressed with a number of the new changes in product. The shift in the product maps well to the industry shift towards any device and the user self service models.

On the downside there were a number of performance issues with the labs which prevented a number of participants from completely the labs. This has been actively tweeted and blogged about and subsequently reported in the media. What hasn’t been said enough is the fantastic way Microsoft responded and handled the a situation with those effected. I personally want to go on record publically and say Thank You to Sarah Vaughn for everything she has done responding to the situation.

In terms of content I was really impressed with the ...

This is a cross post from www.mickhuxley.com

The other week I managed to scam myself an iPad 2 from work for a few days for a test run.  I have always wondered weather I would use an iPad much, but before going out and dropping close to $1000AUD on one I figured a trail run for a few days would help me make up my mind.

To start I love the magnetic covers on the iPad 2.  These covers are functional and stylish.  The cover has groves which allow it to be bent to act as a stand propping the iPad at about a 30 degree angle.  It is also used to put the device to sleep when folded over the screen.  A really good idea in both senses.  Lets get down to the device itself and really it’s just a big iPhone 4 in my book.

The apps….

The apps in the Apple iStore are what sets it apart in the mobile landscape from Windows Phone, Android and Blackberry.  Although these stores are catching up, the range of apps in the iStore is a ...

Cast your mind back to the early days of Blackberry in the Enterprise. Not only was it 'executive bling' but it also introduced new functionality. Secure email anywhere in the palm of your hand. It worked well for IT Security due to the security, the ability to kill the device and the encryption. Finally IT Administrators loved the ease at which devices could be provisioned.

However what the blackberry devices excelled at was also a weakness... email was limited in functionality, plain text only, not all attachments could be rendered and S/MIME were all problems back in the early days but as devices and servers matured and new non-blackberry devices appeared on the market much of this functionality improved.

Then a new device joined the market.. not as a corporate device, but as a consumer device. The iPhone. At this point let me preface my comments to come. I have used the following devices to connect my corporate email account over the years. A Blackberry (the old blue one) and a 9700 B ...

<** Disclaimer **> I am not going to be describing how the technologies discussed here operate at a high level.  Some prior knowledge of deployment will be required. </** Disclaimer **>

I’ve been working with the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit in a lab recently to start testing some image deployment options.  I was running Oracle Virtual Box but found that the boot.sdi (the initial download from WDS during deployment) was taking up to 8 or 9 minutes to download and it’s only about 3MB.

I decided that I would switch to VMWare Workstation.  I am unable to use Virtual PC as I need x64 guests.  The boot.sdi was download in < 3 seconds and the boot.wim also with speed.

To take a step back the environment I am running is very simple. A single deployment server running Windows Server 2008 R2.  This server hosts DNS, ADDS, DHCP, WDS and has the WAIK and MDT 2010 U1 installed. 

Once I had rebuilt the server in VMware Workstatio ...

This is possibly the most excited I have been heading in to any TechEd. Last year, I really involved myself in the community side of TechEd and met a bunch of awesome people.  This year #autechheads has formed, and through it I’ve had the opportunity to meet even more awesome folks.

So this year, as well as the content, the community side of TechEd will rock. I will be a part of the #EyeForce crew filming interviews with speakers and delegates to discover the unspoken side of TechEd.

If you want quick and punch updates follow me on twitter @thehuxman or follow the #auteched tag. I will be blogging everyday as well, with more in-depth coverage of my time here at TechEd.

Of course, don’t forget to become a fan of TechEd Australia on Facebook to see the videos, the other #EyeForce and me. 

Edited by Elly Hart, 10.50am, August 29, 2010.

Last week I become the proud owner of a Lenovo X201 Tablet.  This device is a loaner for Lenovo to my company and I am lucky enough to be given the 1st opportunity to review it. 

First things first was to rebuild the OS.  The x201T was delivered with Windows 7 Professional x86. That’s right x86 Windows on a computer that boats the following hardware stats.

Last week the Exchange Team blogged about the Remote Desktop Connection Manager being available for download at Microsoft.com (here is the article).  This is a handy tool indeed and I’ve switched over from my trusted Remote Desktop console that came packaged with Windows Server 2003 and was an extension of the original TSMMC I used back in the PowerShell day.

Firstly I would like to point out that I’ve structured my Remote Desktop console pretty well, although there are a few limitations.  Firstly servers cannot be moved up and down in the order.  Therefore if you use a site code in your Domain Controller naming convention and you bring a new site on, to maintain a list sorted alphabetically I had to rename all the servers from the mid-point onwards to essentially ‘shuffle’ the servers down a spot. 

My other major frustration was being able to identify servers that I had an active connection too. 

Above is an example ...

As I haven't been working on a many new projects of late I haven't had the opportunity to discover new technologies or find some awesome solutions.  What I wanted to blog about today and hopefully open up some good discussion is my favourite products and the solutions that I would use if I had the opportunity to develop an Enterprise in a green field setup.

First up let's talk hardware and specifically storage.  I don't believe that there is currently a better storage option then NetApp. I've worked with EMC, NetApp, HP, IBM and HDS storage devices and have never found a better device then the NetApp gear.  The WALF (Write Anywhere File System) is a great way to store data.  The other killer feature of the NetApp is the ability to present a LUN via CIFS, NFS, Fibre or iSCSI and switch between them (if licensed) provides a very flexable storage environment.  On top of this is there are a number of other features which are standard ac ...

Yesterday I downloaded and installed Citrix Xen Client.  Xen Client is a desktop Hypervisor which allows virtual machines to be run on the bare metal without the need to first run up a full operating system.  This works in much the same as vSphere or Xen Server in the Data centre.

I should preface this post by noting that Xen Client is currently pre-release software and as such plays up a little.  My first installation attempt was on a Lenovo x201.  Whilst the install completed okay and the Hypervisor loads, the graphics drivers are missing and as such I was unable to load the GUI.  I had been warned during installation that the x201 was not on the Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) and rightly so it seems.

Running over to Citrix.com I noted that the x200 was on the HCL so I grabbed one from the desktop team and installed Xen Client again.  This time I was presented with a client screen.  The interface here is very simple.  Across the top of the s ...

I wanted to take this first big blog on #autechheads (yes @aussienick I'm using hash tags in blogs now as well as emails and twitter) to talk about the second biggest buzz word after Cloud... Privacy.  This one simple word that turns simple solutions into complex minefields with civil libertarians jumping out of their skin to protect the children.

Privacy (from a technology stand point) has found its way back into the media thanks to Mark Zuckerberg's little web-app Facebook.  Whether it's due to the numerous and ridicules privacy settings, the terms of use, reports of a super-account, staff hacking profiles, how teens and all users should be more careful (http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/the-terrors-of-twittering-growing-up-in-an-unexploded-data-minefield-20100505-u8rk.html) or simply bugs that expose private information (http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/facebook-glitch-exposes-friends-chatter-20100506-ubqw.html) Facebook is under the spot light.  ...

I prefer to keep things separate but I wanted to draw your attention to a couple of announcements and features that I discovered today.  Firstly SQL Server 2008 R2 hit RTM but more importantly SQL Express 2008 R2, you know the free one, has grown from a 2GB to a 10GB database. Smiles all around on that .. and thanks to Catherine Eibner (@ceibner) for the heads up.

Secondly with Exchange 2010 SP1, Administrators will be able to set rules around the naming of user created DL’s.   For those who missed Exchange 2010 details, users can now create and manage their own DL’s (if you allow) and with SP1 you can configure rules.  So if a user creates a list called yellowteam the list can be formed using pre-defined rules and queries from AD and may end up looking more like DL-AU-Sydney-Accounting-yellowteam.  I’ll blog more about this soon but the Exchange product team have a good p ...