Recently in Microsoft Category

ZoomIt is screen zoom and annotation tool for technical presentations that include application demonstrations. ZoomIt runs unobtrusively in the tray and activates with customizable hotkeys to zoom in on an area of the screen, move around while zoomed, and draw on the zoomed image.

Where have you been all my life! This is a perfect utility for drawing on a PowerPoint presentation or any screen and is ideal for webinars where the audience can't see a laser pointer. I especially like the ability to add arrows and boxes. Its break countdown is a fantastic touch.  I'll use this in all my classes from now own.  This is definitely going on my thumbdrive.

With Microsoft RemoteFX, users will be able to work remotely in a Windows Aero desktop environment, watch full-motion video, enjoy Silverlight animations, and run 3D applications – all with the fidelity of a local-like performance when connecting over the LAN. Their desktops are actually hosted in the data center as part of a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) or a session virtualization environment (formerly known as Terminal Services). With RemoteFX, these users will be able to access their workspace via a standard RDP connection from a broad range of client devices – rich PCs, thin clients and very simple, low-cost devices.

Also today, we announced a collaboration agreement with Citrix, which will enable Citrix to integrate and use Microsoft RemoteFX within its XenDesktop suite of products and HDX

I've been critical of VDI implementations thus far because of the degradated user experience. Having a VDI experience with full Aero, full-motion video, and significantly improved graphics performance will go a long way to bridge the gap between a VDI and desktop experience.

Over the years, displaying recipient photographs in the Global Address List (GAL) has been a frequently-requested feature, high on the wish lists of many Exchange folks. Particularly in large organizations or geographically dispersed teams, it's great to be able to put a face to a name for people you've never met or don't frequently have face time with. Employees are commonly photographed when issuing badges/IDs, and many organizations publish the photos on intranets.

Exchange 2010 and Outlook 2010 make this task a snap, with help from AD. AD includes the Picture attribute (we'll refer to it using its ldapDisplayName: thumbnailPhoto) to store thumbnail photos, and you can easily import photos— not the high-res ones from your 20 megapixel digital camera, but small, less-than-10K-ish ones, using Exchange 2010's Import-RecipientDataProperty cmdlet.

The first question most IT folks would want to ask is— What's importing all those photos going to do to the size of my AD database? And how much AD replication traffic will this generate? The cmdlet won't allow you to import a picture larger than 10K. The original picture used in this example was 9K, and you can compress it further to a much smaller size - let's say approximately 2K-2.5K, without any noticeable degradation when displayed at the smaller sizes. If you store user certificates in AD, the 10K or smaller size thumbnail pictures are comparable in size. Storing thumbnails for 10,000 users would take close to 100 Mb, and it's data that doesn't change frequently.

This is fantastic news, as it can take the place of the directory info of an Intranet. I often rely on the GAL for phone numbers and office locations or to lookup someone if I just know their first or last name.

This means the value of the attribute isn't copied to the OAB— instead, it simply indicates the client should get the value from AD. If an Outlook client (including Outlook Anywhere clients connected to Exchange using HTTPS) can access AD, the thumbnail will be downloaded and displayed.

While it's not cached in the OAB by default, it can be done.

For true offline use, you could modify the ConfiguredAttributes of an OAB to make thumbnailPhoto a Valueattribute. After this is done and the OAB updated, the photos are added to the OAB.

That might not be good for larger organizations, but for small to medium sized ones, it might work very well.

UPDATE: MSExchange.org has a step-by-step guide.

For the first time ever, Microsoft is expanding the 50%* off Up-To-Date (UTD) discount to include TWO prior versions on both Microsoft Office Professional and Microsoft Windows worldwide and this offer will be available until June 30, 2010!  (If you see “N-2”, “N” is the current version and “-2” means two prior versions)  What this means is that millions of customers running older versions of Microsoft Office Professional and Microsoft Windows will now be able to take advantage of the Up-To-Date discount available through the Open Value Subscription Program to get 50%* off their Year 1 payments! 

So who qualifies for this offer?

• For Microsoft Office Professional Plus:
  • Before the Office 2010 launch:  Companies with OEM, Retail, or Volume licenses for Microsoft Office 2007 Professional, Office 2003 Professional, or Office XP Professional
  • After the Office 2010 launch: Companies with OEM, Retail, or Volume licenses for Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2007 or Office 2003 Professional
• For Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Upgrade:
  • Companies with OEM, Retail, or Volume licenses for Windows 7 Professional, Windows Vista Business or Windows XP Professional

What you get:

• 50%* off your 1st year OVS payment for Microsoft Windows 7 Professional Upgrade or Microsoft Office Professional for every qualifying N-1 or N-2 license you have.  (It’s like receiving credit for your existing qualifying Microsoft assets!)
  • * Estimated Retail Prices of UTD Part #s are ~50% below Estimated Retail Prices of non-UTD Part # for same product.  Reseller prices may vary.  (See HOW THIS WORKS)
• As an example, in the U.S., this means you would be paying $32.00 for a Windows 7 Professional Upgrade and/or $82.00 for Office 2007 Professional Plus in year 1, plus receiving all of the Software Assurance benefits (such as an automatic upgrade to Office 2010 when it launches, Office Home Use Rights, and much more) for that price!

This is a great way for businesses that do not have Software Assurance to upgrade to Office Professional 2007 and Windows 7. For the first time, Microsoft includes "N-2" in the offer (Office XP Professional, Windows XP Professional).

This is a fantastic, cost-effective way to get your organization on Window 7 and Office 2007 (with an automatic upgrade to Office 2010 when it launches).

The discount runs through June 1, 2010.

With the increase in the number of mobile users, growing organizations are finding it difficult to maintain connectivity with their mobile workforce, when they are not connected to the network. This has an adverse impact on the productivity because the users are unable to connect to corporate resources easily. Also, because mobile users remain disconnected when they are outside the network, it is difficult for the administrators to keep the mobile computers up-to-date.

Windows 7 improves connectivity with the help of features such as Mobile Broadband DirectAccess, VPN Reconnect, and BranchCache.

This is huge! Windows 7 + Windows Server 2008 R2 enable mobile users to access the corporate LAN more readily and cut down the need to connect via VPN.

Outlook Anywhere allows Outlook 2007 to connect to the Exchange 2007 server using any Internet connection. It makes it simple to check e-mail during those 15 minutes you're at the airport connected via your Mobile Broadband card or those 30 minutes you're connected via wi-fi at Starbucks while enjoying your latte.

Anywhere Access goes one step (one giant step) forward to include the corporate LAN. While there will still be applications that require a VPN connection, there should be far fewer now.

Windows 7 can connect directly with your Mobile Broadband card and no longer requires the proprietary dialer application. Anyone with a Mobile Broadband card knows the dialers are not without their quirks and add an additional layer of complexity to the connection. That alone is worth the price of admission.

Administrators can push security updates or policy changes to the remote computer without waiting for the user to connect via VPN or return to the office. This should make all those machines more secure and reduce the amount of time spent applying updates when re-connecting to the LAN or connecting via VPN on a slower Internet connection.