Microlau's Blog

Community {Heroes} Launch - Aftermath

A huge thanks to all of you who've attended the Community {Heroes} Launch last Saturday held at Microsoft Singapore. It was a successful event whereby close to 200 participants spent the day with the local MVPs and experts to learn about exciting new technologies from Singapore. On behalf of the organising team, we thank you for spending time off a precious Saturday, and for your feedback and inputs given either in person, by face or in feedback forms.

We're working to get all the slides (and demos if possible) for downloading and will be sending an email to inform all of you about the download links.

Also, lots of thanks to everyone who've helped out in the event, either during organising it or on the actual day. It was truly a community event whereby everyone chipped in their 2cents worth (time or sweat) and I would like to especially thank Dennis Chung, and Lilian Quek for all the hardwork behind the scenes.

As for those of you who attended DEV2-3 A Developer's Guide to Data Mining - Weehyong and I are truly apologetic that we didn't manage to complete the session, due to the sheer amount of contents to run through. However, we promise that there will a followup talk on this - Where we'll continue where we stopped during the launch - Demoes!

Upgrading HyperV from Beta to RC0 on HP Proliant servers

While upgrading my Hyper V from Beta to RC0 on my HP Proliant M115 server, it cronked out at 54% (somewhat) and refused to proceed any further. One bad mistake I made was not to properly shut down my VMs before patching the server (serves me right for not reading the instructions before applying the patch). So, Rule number 1 -> Read this article.

If you have a HP server, there's a reported bug with the HP network utility that interferes with the patch from Microsoft. Follow this article if the installer hangs at 54% and you cannot resume it after that.

Now that the host OS is patched successfully, go to Hyper V Manager and copy each VM's settings, and remove every one of them. Afterwhich, recreate the virtual machines, pointing to your existing .vhd files. Now, you'll need to patch each guest VM separately. Without this step, your guest VM will not have network connections.

Update for Windows Server 2008 x64 Edition (KB949219)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=DDD94DDA-9D31-4E6D-88A0-1939DE3E9898

Update for Windows Server 2008 (KB949219)
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=B7464B44-821D-4A7C-9D9C-7D74EC14437C

To install the latest version of the Integration Services for Windows Server 2003, for Windows Vista SP1, and for Windows XP SP3, click Insert Integration Services Setup Disk on the Action menu in the Virtual Machine Connection dialog box.

Once you've updated your guest vm successfully, you'll need to pull up Device Manager and remove those devices showing error and remove them. Once all those problematic devices are removed, click on 'Scan for Hardware Changes' and your vm should have it's network connectivity back up.  

That should be it! Have fun!

Community Heroes Launch - Updates

My business trip to Australia and then MVP Summit

I was recently on a business trip to Melbourne and then flew to US to attend the Microsoft MVP summit. I've managed to upload all the photos during Labour Day holiday and here are all the links. Hope you'll enjoy.

Shots taken at Melbourne:

• Labour Day Parade (http://picasaweb.google.com/microlau/LaborDayParadeMelbourne)
• Melbourne South Bank (http://picasaweb.google.com/microlau/SouthBankMelbourne)
• Random shots of Melbourne City (http://picasaweb.google.com/microlau/RandomShotsOfMelbourneCity)
• Wine Tasting at Yarra Valley (http://picasaweb.google.com/microlau/WineTastingYarraValley)
• Weekend getaway at Wilsons Promontory (http://picasaweb.google.com/microlau/WeekendGetawayWilsonSPromontory)
• Melbourne's Royal Botanic Garden (http://picasaweb.google.com/microlau/AnAfternoonMelbourneBotanicGardens)
• Scenes from Central Pier at Docklands (http://picasaweb.google.com/microlau/DocklandsScenes)
• Sunday at Queen Victoria's Market (http://picasaweb.google.com/microlau/SpendingASundayInQueenVictoriaMarket)

Shots taken at Seattle (Microsoft MVP Summit):

• Downtown Seattle (http://picasaweb.google.com/microlau/DowntownSeattle)
• CrabPot Dinner (http://picasaweb.google.com/microlau/CrabPotDinner)
• Regional Dinner (http://picasaweb.google.com/microlau/MVPRegionalDinner)
• Product Group Dinner (http://picasaweb.google.com/microlau/ProductGroupDinner)
• Random shots @Microsoft Redmond Campus (http://picasaweb.google.com/microlau/ShotsMicrosoftRedmondCampus)
• Experience Music Project (http://picasaweb.google.com/microlau/ExperienceMusicProject)
• Dinner with SEA MVPs (http://picasaweb.google.com/microlau/DinnerWithSEAMVPs)
• Summit Closing Notes (http://picasaweb.google.com/microlau/SummitClosingNote)

 

Interoperability Seminar - Different perspectives. One vision.

Microsoft has jointly organised an event with SiTF, bringing to you, some sessions about interoperability in the world of open-source solutions. Find out more about the event at http://mssg.earth9.com/singapore/edm/2008/04/17/interoparability.html OR register for this half day event (May 17, 2008) at http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032376033&Culture=en-SG

If you're interested about Virtualisation, running PHP on Win servers, and learning about OpenXML, you shouldn't miss this event!

.NET 3.5 Enhancements Training Kit

If you're a web developer and have been following the out of band releases from ASP.NET, this is a good chance to have a consolidaed 'training materials', aka hands on lab, presentations, and demoes, which comprises of the following technologies:

1)      ADO.NET Data Services
2)      ADO.NET Entity Framework
3)      ASP.NET AJAX History
4)      ASP.NET Dynamic Data
5)      ASP.NET MVC
6)      ASP.NET Silverlight controls

Find out more at http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=8719735

I know that's lot of evolution around ASP.NET that's out of band, and it makes pretty hard to catch up. But I must applaud the product group for doing a great job of listening that people are getting confused with the 'outflux' of minor releases.

MSA - Vulnerability in Windows Could Allow Elevation of Privilege

Quoted from the security advisory -

"Microsoft is investigating new public reports of a vulnerability which could allow elevation of privilege from authenticated user to LocalSystem, affecting Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 and all supported versions and editions of Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008. Customers who allow user-provided code to run in an authenticated context, such as within Internet Information Services (IIS) and SQL Server, should review this advisory. Hosting providers may be at increased risk from this elevation of privilege vulnerability."

 

Heroes Community Launch 2008 - from the community

SGDN, SWUG and SGSQLUG is joining forces again, following the sucess of our last 2 events, LOVE 2007 and CTU 2007. We'll be having deep dive sessions on Visual Studio 2008, Sql Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008, brought to you by local experts and MVPs. The event is held on 17th May 2008, Saturday, and it will be a whole day event.

 Here's the details of the event:

Date: 17th May 2008
TIme: 0830 hrs - 1600 hrs
Venue: Microsoft Singapore, One Marina Boulevard

To find out more about the event, sign up here

April 2008 UG Meeting

Our next UG Meeting is held on 3rd April 2008, Level 22CF-15, NTUC Building from 1845 hrs – 2030 hrs

Introduction to the Microsoft Sync Framework
Wee Hyong (SQL Server MVP)
1900 hrs – 2015 hrs
This session will introduce the Microsoft Sync Framework - a comprehensive synchronization platform enabling collaboration and offline access for applications, services and devices with support for any data type, any data store, any transfer protocol, and network topology.

About the speaker
Wee Hyong is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) for SQL Server. He is deeply passionate about advancing the state-of-art in database management systems. Over the past years, he has been actively sharing his insights on how organizations can realize tremendous value and gain competitive advantages by unlocking the immense potential of Microsoft Business Intelligence (BI) stack. He is a regular speaker at various various events (MSDN Meet-the-Experts, MSDN TechTalk, MEDC, Mini TechReady) and usergroups (SGDOTNET, Office and SQL Server usergroups)
 
To register for the event, click here.

VPN story

As you've probably heard from my previous rantings, I'm currrently using W2K8 Enterprise on my laptop. Well, it's feature-rich and pretty stable (comparing to Vista) but of course there are plenty of hiccups. Running on a brand new 64bit OS means that plenty of drivers and software simply doesn't work well, and here's my VPN story.

Recently sent to Australia, Melbourne, to assist in a project. Boy, internet bandwidth here is limited, precious and expensive. I was trying to establish a vpn connection back to my office in Singapore but was simply astonished to find the lack of 64bit Vista/Win2k8 VPN client from major vendors (** hint hint **). Well, working within limits (bandwidth limitation + lack of VPN client support) is certainly what we're trained to do in my company, so here's what I did.

1) RDP to my server @home running W2K8
2) Setup a WinXP VM on my Hyper-V
3) Install VPN client and create a tunnel to my office network resources

Well, what can I say?

March 2008 UG Meeting

Our next UG Meeting is held on 6th March 2008, Level 22CF-12, NTUC Building from 1845 hrs – 2030 hrs

Windows Live SDK
Darren Sim (ASP.NET MVP)
1900 hrs – 2015 hrs

The Windows Live™ Platform puts a deeper level of control into developers' hands by offering access to the core services and data through open, easily accessible APIs. 

In this presentation, Darren would share with the audience, what is Live SDK & Services all about and how they could leverage on this platform/framework, to build rich, interactive, applications for their personal/corporate sites.

After the presentation you would be able to build applications and mashups (Web applications that combine multiple services into a single application to consolidate information with an easy-to-use interface) that combine your innovation with the power of Windows Live services and social relationships!

About the speaker
Darren's a Microsoft ASP.NET MVP who speaks frequently in the MSDN Circuits and other Microsoft-linked events, internationally (most recently at VS LIVE! in San Francisco, USA), covering both academia events as well as professional events. His speaking engagements includes Microsoft Expressions, Microsoft XNA, .NET Security, Atlas, ClickOnce Development, ASP.NET 2.0, Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server 2005, Microsoft Communities, C# 2005, iMovie and Windows Vista.

Apart from his speaking engagements, Darren also does trainings on Microsoft .NET technologies for technical training schools.
Prior to joining Microsoft Developer Programs, Darren had been part of the Apple® Talent Development Team at MSHS where he led the Multimedia team, focusing on Multimedia Development & Production.

To register for the event, click here.

Installing Virtual Server 2005 on Vista / Server 2008

Besides enabling IIS for both OS, you'll need to ensure that the following modules are enabled:

Under Common Http Features enable:

• Static Content
• Default Document
• Directory Browsing
• HTTP Errors

Under Application Development Features enable:

• CGI

Under Health and Diagnostics enable:

• HTTP Logging
• Request Monitor

Under Security enable:

• Windows Authentication

Under Performance Features enable:

• Static Content Compression

Under Management Tools enable:

• IIS 6 Management Console
• IIS 6 Management Compatibility
• IIS 6 Metabase Compatibility

[Quoted from http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/archive/2007/07/31/installing-virtual-server-r2-sp1-on-windows-server-2008-beta-3.aspx]

Where is Search services in W2K8?

Following on my previous posting about setting up Win2k8 on my laptop, I realised that I cannot do Instant Search due to some missing component / services. These are the steps to solve it:

1) Start Server Manager

2) Click on Roles in the left navigation pane

3) Select Add Role in the Roles Summary pane to the right

4) Select the File Services role and click Next

5) Select the Windows Search role service

[Quoted from Olav Tollefsen's Blog entry]

Losing sleep over Hyper-V

Over the week, I managed to install Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition w/Hyper V on my Compaq 6510b laptop. Not the best of the equipment to run hardware virtualisation but it made it easier for me to do my work. When I've finally added Hyper V feature to my laptop and was about to go for a meeting, I realised that there was no sleep/hibernate option anymore. A quick google reveals the truth - http://blogs.technet.com/doxley/archive/2008/02/13/insomnia-causing-hyper-v.aspx, apparently, I've been marginalised as a geek minority user whom the product team doesn't feel justified to spend time and effort (for the sleep + hyper-V).

What do you wanna to hear about VS2008/.NET 3.5?

I'm sure most of you are aware that VS2008/.NET 3.5 & W2K8 are already RTM-ed and there will be global launch of the software, including Singapore. Riding on the success of previous events like VS2005 & Sql Server 2005 launch, LOVE Launch and Community Technology Update, we'll be arranging for another joint UG effort. Before we decide on what topics should be presented during the day long (not confirmed yet) session, I would like to gather some inputs on what you wish to learn about? We'll aim to cover > Level 200 series for this event and appreciate any inputs from any of you. Either add a comment to this post or drop me an email at microlau_at_sgdotnet_dot_org.

Thanks and I hope to hear from you!