Welcome to Windows Connected

We are running a beta for Microsoft for their Lync Hosted product.  If you are interested in getting a taste at what Hosted Lync is like for free, just send an email to beta@gopronetworks.com.  Please include your name, contact information, and how many users you will want to participate.  We are specifically looking for companies, but we will take individual users as well and make you all a part of a ‘virtual’ (fake) company.

We look forward to participating with you on this project!

Most people are virtualizing these days. One of the great things about virtualization is that you can create a VHD of your guest and clone it for very fast build outs. But, despite what Microsoft has been coming out and saying, you STILL need to SysPrep your machine AND make sure to check the 'generalize' option before making a clone of your .VHD. (I recently made the mistake of not checking the 'generalize' option when doing SysPrep, and it essentially made it pointless.) If you don't, and especially if you create a domain controller from this image, you will have all kinds of weird things happen to you without it throwing any errors. Things such as not being able to add domain accounts to local user groups (it will show a weird SID name'd version of the account/group, and it will then disappear when clicking ok or apply) as well as failure for authentication, etc. It will drive you up the wall, so be careful!

Here are the instructions for SysPrep;

1) Run Sysprep (on Windows Server 2008 this is located in c:\Windows\System32\Sysprep\Sysprep.exe)
2) Ensure ‘System Out-of-Box Experience (OOBE)’ is selected
3) Tick the ‘Generalize’ option (this resets the SID)
4) Select ‘Shutdown’ from the Shutdown Options.
5) Once the machine has shutdown, take your image and you are good to go!

Check Ray's blog post here for more;

http://www.rayheffer.com/619/cloning-windows-server-2008-r2-use-sysprep-no-more-newsid/

http://phones.microsoftstore.com/mobile/

Yep, you can get a brand new WP7 with either a new line, or with an eligible upgrade.  Unless of course you are a Sprint Business customer (like we are) in which case Sprint will royally screw you over.  Honestly, I've been nothing but punished for being a business customer of Sprint's.  Consumer account with Sprint, no problem.  Business customer, nope, you don't get any deals.  Seriously considering switching back to T-Mobile now that they've caught up (except for of course the looming possibility of an AT&T merger.)

Anyhow, hopefully everyone else out there can take advantage of this offer.  I'll sit here on hold with Sprint for a few more hours I am sure as I climb the ladder of incompetence until someone can explain to me why business accounts should be screwed over.

Building "Windows 8" - Video #1

I have to admit, I was a bit dubious if I would like this slate style interface on my desktop computer, but the concept is already starting to grow on me, especially with the easy ability to stack apps side by side in the UI.  On a slate device, this is going to be just awesome.  The biggest advantage in my opinion that this will have over the iPad is that ALL PC apps will run on my slate, my laptop, and my PC.  (And I would assume soon, my phone, as I am sure WP7 will be replaced by Windows 8.)

So, what does everyone else think?

So of course the big news of the day is that Microsoft has just spent 8.5 BILLION dollars to buy SKYPE of all things. When I heard about this yesterday of course my knee jerk reaction was 'seriously'??? The first thing that came to mind was 'this is just a game of keep away from Google.' Looks like I was right.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-buys-skype-for-85-billion-creates-new-business-division/9406?tag=mantle_skin;content

My take on this whole situation?

Well, obviously they’ll never make their money back on it, that’s for sure.  My gut reaction is they did this out of peer pressure from Google.  MS hasn’t really been doing much acquiring in the last few years (nothing compared to what they used to) whereas Google has been acquiring all over the place, with things such as YouTube, etc.  Personally I think they bought Skype because they figured if they didn’t Google would eventually and they just wanted to beat them to the punch. (Which based on the story above seems to be the case.) In fact this is starting to feel like a game of Monopoly with everyone trying to grab every property on the board regardless of its value, just so that no one else can have it. (And paying way too much in the process.)

There could be some really cool possibilities coming via Lync integration (through PIC I am assuming just like with Live Messenger, AOL, Yahoo, etc) and integration with Xbox Live/Kinect. I wonder if they will just replace Kinect chat with ‘Skype powered’ chat. Who knows. Based on my experience though the codec’s used by OCS/Lync for audio/video (especially the RTA codec) are far superior to that of any other product, especially Skype.

I’ve been asked if this is an over-lap with Lync. It isn’t really over-lap with Lync per se.  Skype is more consumer based where Lync is business based, but there are a lot of companies who use Skype for business calls to companies in India, etc.  My guess is that MS will change the license agreement so that businesses can’t use Skype for free as a way of trying to push them towards Lync. (Which doesn’t mean that companies won’t still do it, but that will be MS’s way of ‘nudging’ them towards it.)

So, long story short I think it was an insanely bad idea, and it was a reactionary one, not a visionary one. I could be wrong and I hope I am, but this seems like a putting the cart before the horse type situation.