Welcome to Windows Connected

From Mary-Jo Foley’s blog……

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=1463

So, since Windows 7 is in development as MS has said, now is the time to offer ideas/suggestions.

Hi J.... I realize of course that he'll never see this message but I hope perhaps the concept reaches him at some point.  If you really want to make a compelling argument for Win7 and secure dominance of the MS platform against competitors, here's a suggestion.

Provide a seamless and unified experience with all Microsoft's primary devices.  What devices am I referring to?  Win7 (PC), Xbox 360, and the Zune.  What do I mean by this?  I mean that my Windows 7 PC (whether it be my Home Server (which should be a Win7 SKU if you ask me) my primary desktop, my laptop, etc) will talk to my Xbox 360 over the network in ways never before seen.  For example, any codecs I have installed on my Win7 Media Center are 'offered' to the Xbox 360 (through a framework that MS designs) so I can play (inside of Media Center, or in the dashboard) any of my video files across any of my devices.  This same framework would 'offer' the codecs to my other Win7 PCs as well, as well as my Zune.  This way I only have to install the codecs on a single machine, once.  (Since MS controls the OS for all these devices this shouldn’t be that difficult a feat with codecs designed to work in the new framework.)  All my media, accessible from any of my devices, over the network.  Seems like a simple enough concept.  I know, there are quite a bit of logistics to work out but honestly?  Not really that much.  Create this framework and make it an open source project so that it is adopted quickly and easily.  (I'm typically against giving away code but since this is a project would want the entire community to be a part of it’s necessary.)  Honestly, how incredible would this simple, brand new compelling feature be?  You would have everyone who does any kind of media or owns any of the other devices upgrading to Win7 en mass.

Next, as part of Win7 Media Center, offer the Media Center Server option.  Even include it as part of the Home Server SKU (which I think it should be.)  This way I have my primary media server, and then I can watch TV shows or even live TV via my PCs as well as my Xbox 360's and even a simple feed transport on my Zune via wifi.  My point is that each of these devices/skus (Vista Premium, Home Server, Xbox 360 (dashboard and extender), Zune), all have this completely different (and none of them feature complete) interfaces that require me to switch from one to another to another to get everything I want.  It's insane.  Why????  Honestly, WHY??  If you could provide a completely unified front-end (which, I hate to admit Apple is quite well at doing) you can provide a huge reason for Win7 and secure Microsoft's OS dominance.  Trust me, I have a ton more ideas/concepts for this 'unified experience' but I don't want this to be 10 pages long.

Just a thought.

One additional note.  Instead of the insane SKU’s that really are irrelevant, let’s have Win7 SKUs that do have a purpose.  Here are my proposed Win7 SKUs - (Windows 7 Home (includes standard Media Center, essentially Home Premium), Windows 7 Home Server (This includes all Home Server options plus some additional features such as Folder Redirection and other enterprise tools, and this is the SKU that contains Media Center Server), Windows 7 Business, Windows 7 Ultimate (that has all features of every SKU.)

So, what do you think?  What features or concepts would you like in Win7?  Now’s the time to be heard while development is still happening.  Once the beta starts, I doubt they’ll listen to any feature requests.

I am curious to hear from those of you out there if you liked the format of the this years teched and if you think they should continue to host the event this way?   Did you get the same or more value than you had previous years from this event?

I skipped this year because I didn't think there was going to be enough new content to warrant the trip and the fact that the split would in my mind diminish some of the value.

So what are your thoughts on TechEd this year?

At Teched yesterday the IE team revealed a little more about IE8 for IT Pro's.  They are planning to make IE8 slipstreamable into images.  Meaning updating your image to include IE8 will take 10-15 minutes versus the time it might take to wake it up and then re-sysprep.

To slipstream IE8 only takes 10-15 minute per image. You’ll also be able to slipstream IE8 cumulative updates so that you are shipping the most up to date and secure image.

Look out for a forthcoming post to learn more about Slipstreaming IE8.

Additional info shared about IE 8:

• adding new events to the Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) that help you detect and resolve potential issues between IE8
• providing Group Policy settings that help you control, with great granularity, those settings that most impact compatibility.
• IEAK8 will support custom IE8 builds for new platforms: Vista and Windows Server 2008 and new IE8 features like Activities and Web Slices
• We plan to include all of the above mentioned features in our Beta 2 release which is planned for August 2008.

If you make regular use of Netmon you will probably want to know that Microsoft has released a beta of Netmon 3.2 to connect.

Netmon Connect Site

Here is what is new according to the site:

Process Tracking: View all the processes on your machine generating network traffic (process name and PID).  Use the conversation tree to view frames associated with each process.

§ Find conversations:  Quickly isolate frames in the same network conversation.  Isolate TCP streams, HTTP flows etc.

§ PCAP capture file support*

§ Capture engine re-architecture to improve capture rate in high-speed networks.   Network Monitor 3.2 drops significantly fewer frames that NM 3.1

§ Extensive parser set:  Parsers for over 300 protocols!  Parsers for the protocols covered by the Windows Open Protocol Specifications (see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc216517.aspx).

§ NM API: Create your own applications that capture, parser and analyze network traffic!

§ Better parser management:  By default only a subset of parsers are loaded.  You can load the full parser set by changing the parser search order in Tools>Options>Parser

§ Support for frame truncation.  Go to Tools>Options and limit the number of bytes captured per frame to improve performance.

§ More extensive documentation of the NPL which includes documentation on the new NMAPI.  Access the documentation from Help > NPL and API Documentation

§ Enhanced filtering on items within NPL while loops or arrays.  You can specify an index into the array or while loop to filter on

§ IA64 version now available.

§ ContainsBin Plug-in:  Search frames for arbitrary byte sequences or strings.  For example, ContainsBin(FrameData, ASCII, “msn”).

§ More UI indications of conversation status, dropped frames and the number of frames in the capture buffer.

§ … and more.  See our Release Notes in the NM3.2 installation directory for a complete list of new features and known issues with the Beta.

Enjoy!

The Network Monitor Team

The other day HP had me out to campus to look at the new notebook lineup they would be launching this week in Berlin. This lineup includes 16 new models of notebooks.

The HP Consumer line will updated its Pavilion lineup as seen below with a new new design and a "Magic Chrome" touch bar. The best way to describe this is that it is sort of mirrored and only visible when lit.

Ergonomic folks will enjoy the new docking station as it will allow you to adjust the height of the laptop screen relative to the dock. However, if you want to use dual external displays with your notebook this isn't for you.

The HP Elitebook is shooting to be the new, sexy, desirable laptop on the scene. So while the brushed anodized aluminum and the magnesium alloy of the chassis are great looking in my opinion it misses the mark for the people it is trying attract.

Mobile professional are making a move to smaller more portable notebooks and always looking for more battery life.  So my guess is why this looks great and might do ok as mid-range notebook for HP they really needs starting things of using some of this technology to design a true competitor to the Lenovo X, the Toshiba protege, and even the Macbook air.

If you drop the weight to sub 3lbs and make it thinner, this look could be a much bigger seller.