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I've always been a fan of Microsoft keyboards and mice. They're usually rock solid and last forever. I still have a working scroll mouse that's at least seven years old. Microsoft has now released two new mice, the Microsoft Explorer Mouse and the Microsoft Explorer Mini Mouse. What's new about them? These mice feature a new tracking technology from Microsoft called "Blue Track":

The Microsoft® Explorer Mini Mouse, with revolutionary Microsoft BlueTrack™ Technology, works more places than ever before, including on granite countertops, carpet—even on a wood table or a rough, unfinished park bench.

Plus, I'm a sucker for things that emit blue light.I can't wait to get my hands on one of these and test it out.  That being said, I'm not so sure this is the way I'd go with the advertising campaign.

Microsoft has announced that the next version of Office, in line with various other cloud computing initiatives, will offer lightweight versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote that will be available for use in web browsers, called Office Web applications.

This is likely a result of the huge popularity of Google Docs. Microsoft will be playing catchup in this market, and from the press release, it looks like there will be both ad-funded (free) and subscription services. The question I'm wondering is where the docs will be stored. There will surely be some storage attached to the service, I'm guessing around 2-5G. What would really be great would be a tie-in with Live Mesh. If I could have a Mesh folder to store all my Office Web documents in, I could open them not just on any of my own PC's, Macs, or Windows Mobile phones, but on any computer with a web browser anywhere in the world. So keep that in mind Microsoft.

Below are some initial screenshots of the offering. Click for hi-res versions.

Samsung has released a Windows Mobile 6.1 upgrade for the the Sprint Ace (SPH-i325). If you have a Blackjack Ace, you can get started on your upgrade here. Not only do you get all the 6.1 goodness, Sprint is enabling turn-by-turn GPS navigation, so get yours today!

A few days ago, Microsoft released a few more Ultimate Extras:

• Microsoft Tinker - a puzzle solving type game
• Ultimate Extras Sounds from Tinker
• Dream Scene Content Pack 4

Dream Scene for me is a non-starter. My Vista box runs slow enough as it is without an MPEG background making my processor permanently park itself at 90+ percent. Maybe if I had a dual quad-core system I would have some spare cycles for that, but I don't.

I played Tinker for about 10 minutes. It was kind of fun, I guess. And as far as all the other Ultimate Extras go, Tinker is probably the best thing they've offered to date. Which isn't saying much.

As for the sound pack, how much more effort was it to take the sounds from the game and put them into the OS as system sounds? That's what I thought.

Microsoft has fallen way short on the promise of Ultimate Extras. How about some useful sidebar gadgets? How about anything useful? I haven't given up completely on Ultimate Extras, but I'm definitely not holding my breath at this point.

If you're sporting a Samsung BlackJack II, you can now upgrade to Windows Mobile 6.1 by going here.

UPDATE:  A patch as been released to fix this issue. You can download it at http://www.vmware.com/go/esxexpresspatches.

Just landed in my inbox:

Problem:

An issue has been discovered by many VMware customers and partners with ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 2 where Virtual Machines fail to power on or VMotion successfully. This problem began to occur on August 12, 2008 for customers that had upgraded to ESX 3.5 Update 2. The problem is caused by a build timeout that was mistakenly left enabled for the release build.

Affected Products:

• VMware ESX 3.5 Update 2 & ESXi 3.5 Update 2
• Reports of problems with ESX 3.5 U1 with the following 3.5 Update 2 patch applied.
          1. ESX350-200806201-UG
• No other VMware products are affected.

What has been done?

• Product and Web teams pulled the ESX 3.5 Update 2 bits from the download pages last night so no more customers will be able to download the broken build.
• VMware Engineering teams have isolated the cause of the problem and are working around the clock to deliver updated builds and patches for impacted customers.
• A Knowledgebase article has been published (http://kb.vmware.com/kb/1006716), but traffic to the knowledgebase is causing time outs. A new static page has been published at http://www.vmware.com/support/esx35u2_supportalert.html that customers and partners will be able to view.
• The phone system has been updated to advise customers of the problem
• Vmware partners have been notified of the issue.

Workarounds:

1. Do not install ESX 3.5 U2 if it has been downloaded from VMware’s website or elsewhere prior to August 12, 2008.

2. Set the host time to a date prior to August 12, 2008. This workaround has a number of very serious side affects that could impact product environments. Any Virtual Machines that sync time with the ESX host and serve time sensitive applications would be broken. These include, but are not limited to database servers, mail servers, & domain administration systems.

Next Steps:
VMware to notify customers who have downloaded this version and provide an update every two hours.

Resolution:

VMware Engineering has isolated the root cause and is working to produce an express patch for impacted customers today. The target timeframe is 6pm, August 12, 2008 PST.

The Windows Live for Windows Mobile team has released a new version of their software. According to the notes, you'll need to uninstall any version you may currently have on your device before installing this new one. Here's a short list of features:

• Synchronize Live contacts with your contacts on the device
• Synchronize your Live email (msn, hotmail, live)
• View graphics, web links and contact photos in emails
• Respond to emails with voice recordings
• Upload photos to your Windows Live Spaces

You can get the new version by pointing your WM browser to http://wl.windowsmobile.com.

Scobelizer is broadcasting a speech by Microsoft CTO David Vaskevitch, and I'm having trouble focusing on what he's saying. Because of the pants he's wearing:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/scobleizer/2652483935/sizes/l/

I wonder if you can get those at the company store?

I've been following Jason Langridge's blog for some time now, and it was great to get to finally meet him at TechEd this year. I went to a few of the sessions he was conducting, one being "Windows Mobile Smackdown", which is a public version of the event that they have internally at Microsoft.

Jason has been kind enough to post up the list of things he demo'd in that session, such as:

Check out his post for the full list. And check out the video too. You've likely heard that Microsoft is big on eating their own dogfood, well, in that video, some of them do, literally, to win Windows Mobile swag.

For those of you wanting to test out a new Microsoft tool for Exchange issue diagnosis, go to https://testexchangeconnectivity.com. As the presenter emphatically emphasized at TechEd today, this tool is a prototype and has not been run through the normal battery of security tests. If you want to use this tool, create an account and mailbox specifically for testing purposes, and delete it once you have completed testing. DO NOT use your own Exchange mailbox or any other "production" mailbox with this tool. That being said, check it out, it looks pretty cool.

Those of you who have deployed Exchange 2007 on Windows Server 2008 may be aware of an issue involving the backup software that Microsoft includes with Windows Server 2008 where it no longer supports streaming ESE backups. So unless you're using a 3rd party product, you're not able to back up your Exchange servers. Microsoft today announced that they are working on an Exchange-provided VSS-based plugin to Windows Server Backup that will enable the ability to back up your Exchange servers.

If this problem affects you, or you're holding off deploying until a fix is ready, Microsoft says it will be available some time this summer.

For those of you at TechEd who are into Windows Mobile, Microsoft is having a few HTC Diamonds Fed Ex'd in for tomorrow. There will be one on display at the WinMo showcase and at least one for use during Theater sessions in the Yellow areas. Of course, that's if the info I received from the WinMo guys is correct.

UPDATE: Stopped by and saw the Diamond. The TouchFlo scrolling was REALLY slow, and I wasn't the only one who noticed.

8: 35 Right now, African-style drums and dancing. Audience not as enthusiastic about shaking their maracas as the girl on stage would like. Glad I'm sitting in the press room.

8:40 Bob Muglia takes the stage

No more time stamps during this post, too distracting

Discussion of how Microsoft software (Groove and SharePoint) helped out with Katrina relief efforts

Dynamic IT - Employing new solutions and technologies to boost the agility and speed of their IT Systems

Identity Lifecycle Management Beta 3 Demo - I haven't used it, but it looks pretty nice, automation of creating new users, setting up mailbox, add to groups, etc.

Web Services - Demo of SOA Interoperability with .NET 3.5

Virtualization is a transformational technology for IT. When properly deployed and managed, virtualization creates IT systems that are highly efficient and cost-effective

Hyper-V on schedule to release within 180 days of Windows Server 2008 RTM, Muglia says it benchmarks well against VMWare ESX and in some cases out performs it

Moving on to application virtualization and modeling, demo of Hyper-V and System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, built on top of PowerShell. Moving a VM from one host to another really simple, took about 10 seconds, can also do VMotion moves of VMWare VMs

Moving on to application virtualization and SoftGrid. I've used SoftGrid, it's pretty sweet. Version 4.5 coming this summer.

Demo of Kidaro, which will be included in MDOP

Demo of Microsoft Online Services - Enterprise apps hosted by Microsoft like Exchange

Demo of SQL Server 2008 data compression and policy-based management

Keynote over - not bad, Muglia did a pretty good job keeping it going

Double Take software is again throwing their customer appreciation party during TechEd. This year they are having it at Margaritaville and they're calling it Cluster-Funk in Paradise. You have to register to attend, and you can do that here.

Trikah just posted the details for the Pit Stop party for MCPs, MCTs, and MVPs during the IT Pro week of TechEd. You can register here using the following codes: