SCCM v.Next Bootable Media enhancements

Hi,

SCCM v.Next is something I am interested in as you know, so when I found this like I was very chuffed.
What is cool about v.Next and bootable media is the way in which it handles the suppression of screens during the boot process. Enough of me prattling on about it! Read it for yourself here or for those who like the whole link here it is http://blogs.technet.com/b/inside_osd/archive/2010/06/30/v-next-beta-1-feature-bootable-media-improvements-part-2.aspx

Make sure you have a read of the other parts as well!

Cheers

Service Manager 2010 Ramp Up

Getting up to speed on new technologies is always a challenge for the busy IT Pro!   Those kind folks over at Technet have done the business again!

They have provided a ramp up learning resource. There are 8 steps which include videos and documentation. Check it out.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/ff776316.aspx

TechNet Edge and the Cloud

The Cloud means different things to many people. Personally I think that its a great idea.
What I find interesting is is how are IT Pros going to provision The Cloud for their companies? How are they going to adopt the change in the way we look at managing our servers and desktops?

Intune is one really interesting topic as is BPOS, but for the moment I wanted to point out that there is some collateral available on Technet from Edge.

Have a look at http://edge.technet.com/cloud/

OCS R2 Download Page from Microsoft

Suddenly realised that I needed a file for OCS R2 and couldn't remember where I had stored it! Then I remembered that there is a list on the Technet website..

Here it is http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/ocs/bb629431.aspx

Another mixed search engine

Another in the theme of mixed search engines....
Have a look at http://www.yahooglesearch.com

Thanks top Ed on my OCS course.

Communications Server “14” – Replace, Enhance or Add to your PBX & IP-PBX Systems

This is the title to a blog by Jamie Stark Senior Technical Product Manager at Microsoft in the CS team. 

A really top man who I had the good fortune to meet last year at TechEd in Berlin.
One of the interesting things about OCS and now CS is the interaction between Microsoft, Cisco and other vendors. CuciMoc is a product that has got a lot of people very excited. The Cisco guys are all happy as they can retain their telephony infrastructure. The bean counters are also happy as they dont need to spend more on a new infratructure. Well that might be true but what I would like to see is a true cost comparison between OCS R2 / CS 14 and an heteregenous environment.

Anyway, have a look at Jamies blog, as usual truly excellent. Follow the links to the Cucimoc article, really fascinating reading.


The blog post is here


Cheers

OCS Wave 14 - new Web Site available

Hi,

At last we can start having a look at OCS wave 14 or Communications Server "14"

Have a look at the new website but as usual, at this stage anyway, there is not much content in the way of code. But what we do have is a look at what CS 14 will look like. All in all I am pleased that we at last have somewhere to go to see what we will be getting in this much anticipated release.

http://www.microsoft.com/communicationsserver/cs14/en/us/cs14Home.aspx

Wave 14 Powershell

Thomas Lee refered me to this site. At the moment its in its infancy but I guess will grow to be a really useful tool.

You can check it out here or if you want to copy the URL here it is as well  http://blogs.technet.com/b/csps/

Bingle and Lmgtfy

Today I was told about 2 really cool utilities(?) Thanks to Mike and Steve on my SCOM course!

www.bingle.nu Check it out :-)

and then this one!

Do you get asked for links or references to sites? use this then as you answer. Make sure you follow the sytax though.
Put it into an email response as a link and wait for the response, if any!
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=***   replacing the stars with want you want to search for. For example Microsoft, Google etc.
Have fun...

Customising your Communicator client

One of the the really cool things about the next release of OCS, entitled Microsoft Communications Server "14" is the integration with Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF).
Developers are able to utilitise Silverlight and WPF to extend teh Commuicator experience. For example you can provide the same integration experience you are used to in Office within the Communicator client. Examples are, contact search, contact lists, presence, contact details and so on. You can also pass contextual data from you application by using the new contextual conversation API.
To see this in action have a look at this video on the PDC09 website

Microsoft Office Communications server is No More! Hello to Microsoft Communications Server

Looks like we have a name change.
So its goodbye to the Office part of OCS and hello to CS 2010?
Check out this video which demonstrates the name change. This is from Tech-Days series of videos and you can get them here
The title shows the name change rather nicely. The video is entitled  "Introduction to Microsoft Communications Server “W14″