stuart test blog

This article compares hard-key QWERTY phones such as the Blackberry to the iPhone’s (or iPod Touch) on-screen keyboard and discovers a higher error-rate on the iPhone. I have some opinions on the iPod Touch’s keyboard myself, but I’ll save those for another entry.

Link: Direct Comparison of iPhone and Hard-Key QWERTY Phone Owners Indicates Higher Text Entry Error Rate for iPhones

With help from a couple of nifty plugins, this site is now optimised for viewing on either the iPhone or iPod Touch. So if you’re reading this in your feed reader and you’re lucky enough to have one of Apple’s beautiful devices handy, head on over and check it out for yourself.

Plugins:

• iWPhone WordPress Plugin and Theme
• WPhone Version 1.4.0 Has Hit The Streets

Just in case you need another reason why DRM is bad, read this article about the Major League Baseball revoking their DRM license, thus rendering all purchased & downloaded videos now unwatchable.

• MLB rips off fans who bought DRM videos
• Fans shafted as Major League Baseball revokes DRM licenses

The last effort didn’t work, so this time I’ll try it using the WordPress editor – but NOT the visual editor:

Lets see if this works:

• create a new post in Windows Live Writer
• paste the embedded code
• if it works, you should see the Voicethread
• then click the Publish button to post it.

This press release just popped up as I was about to sign off the for the night, but I just had to get a quick mention out: "Integrated IT Designed for Midsized Businesses"

Microsoft have finally revealed some details about a new server bundle for "midsized" business called Windows Essential Business Server. This has been known as Centro in the invitation-only beta phase, which I had hoped to participate in, but was lacking three spare 64 bit servers to test on.

My previous understanding of Centro was that it would require three, 64 bit servers and would bundle several Microsoft server products into a unified, easy to manage, suite. It is effectively a step up from Small Business Server, which runs on a single server and is licensed up to 75 users.

The term "midsized" is relative, depending on the market, but in Microsoft’s terms this is up to 250 computers.

Windows Essentials Business Server will bundle the following products and will provide a single Client Access License (CAL) to cover use of all included products:

• Windows Server 2008
• Exchange Server 2007
• Forefront Security for Exchange
• System Center Essentials
• ISA Server (whatever the next version number is called – probably 2008)
• SQL Server 2008

The press release doesn’t confirm whether three servers are still required or not, but looking at the components, you would want to run them on no less than three boxes. I’d imagine that the ISA server would act as the gateway box, running Forefront SMTP scanning and the Exchange Edge Transport role; then Systems Center Essentials and SQL Server 2008 would sit on another box, and the other Exchange roles would be on the third box. (All 64bit of course.)

Microsoft have also announced the usual list of partners that will be providing solutions specifically for Essential Business Server (EBS) such as HP, IBM, Intel on the hardware front, and Trend Micro, CA, and Citrix on the software front.

The private beta will be expanded into a more public beta in the new year, with a final release date set for the second half of 2008.

This is big news for NZ companies as I know of lots of companies that quickly grow out of an SBS solution but are still small enough to not be considered an Enterprise customer. Local Microsoft partners will be keen on this too, because if a customer is considering upgrading to Exchange 2007, then why not see if they would like the latest version of ISA to complement Exchange – and then you’re two thirds of the way to implementing EBS.

Still some questions that need to be answered…

• How will the licensing work for customers that already have Server and Exchange CALs – will they be able to trade them in for EBS CALs?
• How easily will EBS integrate into an existing environment? SBS needs to be its own root domain and can’t join into any existing domains, surely this wouldn’t be the case for EBS?
• Will there be an upgrade path from SBS to EBS?
• And will there be an upgrade path from EBS to the full version products if needed?

I’m looking forward to testing out the bits and pieces… anybody want to donate/lend me three 64bit servers??

Update with new links:

• Windows Server "Centro" is officially unveiled and has a new name!!
• "Centro" = Windows Essential Business Server
• Windows Server "Centro" has a New Name
• Windows Essential Business Server – why didn’t they just call it Centro?

First week into Movember 2007 and I’ve decided to aim for a classic highway cop moustache – here’s the first of many embarrassing photos for your viewing pleasure! Don’t forget – you can sponsor this effort by donating to the prostrate cancer research fund using my registration number – 107742 – at this address:

http://www.movember.com/nz/donate/?action=sponsorlink&rego=107742

More info…

During Movember (the month formerly known as November) I’ll be growin a Mo. That’s right I’m bringing the Mo back because I’m passionate about men’s health and the fight against prostate cancer. Why…

• Every year in New Zealand 2,656 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer and about 600 die of the disease, making prostate cancer the second largest cause of male deaths, after lung cancer.
• The average life expectancy of a man in New Zealand is 4 years less than a woman.

To sponsor my Mo please go to http://www.movember.com/nz/donate, enter my registration number which is 107742 and your credit card details. Or you can sponsor me by cheque made payable to the "Prostate Cancer Foundation of New Zealand" clearly marking the donation as being for my Registration Number: 107742. Please mail cheques to: Movember, PO Box 87 150, Meadowbank 1742, Auckland. All donations over $5 are tax deductible.

All donations are made directly to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of New Zealand who will use the funds to create awareness, increase support networks for those men who suffer from prostate cancer, fund research and scholarship programs.

For those that have supported Movember in previous years you can be very proud of the impact it has had and can check out the detail at: Fundraising Outcomes.

Movember culminates at the end of the month at the Gala Partés. These glamorous and groomed events will see Tom Selleck and Borat look-a-likes battle it out for their chance to take home the prestigious Man of Movember title. If you would like to be part of this great night you’ll need to purchase a Gala Parté ticket.

Thanks for your support

Stuart

The PowerShell team have just released the first publicly available CTP of PowerShell 2.0. This hasn’t even reached beta stage yet, so there is bound to be lots of bugs and no doubt the product will change  a lot prior to release.

Lots of new features, but the stand-out ones for me are:

• Remote scripting – now you can run PowerShell scripts against remote computers, as long as they also have PowerShell installed.
• Background jobs – you can run a PowerShell script and it will run in the background. This means that your cursor will return to the next line in the console and you can continue with other tasks. You can then query the progress of the background job at any time with another command.
• Script cmdlets – cmdlets can be created using PowerShell scripts whereas in the current version you need to compile them as managed code, for example C# or VB.Net.
• PowerShell GUI – there’s an early preview of a graphical PowerShell front end that gives you colour-coding syntax, as well as multiple tabs with multiple shells (up to eight.)

There’s also mention of improved hosting APIs but I’m not sure if that just applies to compiled applications being built on top of PowerShell. I’d like to be able to run PowerShell in HTAs in the same way that VBScript can currently be run.

I’ve been giving a lot of thought recently as to how PowerShell can be implemented in production, and some of these features will definitely make it more relevant – especially the ability to run PowerShell scripts against remote computers.

While I was away on holiday, Ubuntu released the latest version of their desktop operating system: Ubuntu 7.10. I had last tried the 7.4 release on my new notebook without much luck as the hardware was a lot newer than the operating system.

I wasn’t too hopeful of having much luck installing 7.10 either on my HP 6910p notebook, but a funny thing happened – it just worked!

I downloaded the 64 bit version and booted up the Live CD, preparing myself for disappointment, but after a short while the desktop appeared with a nice little startup sound (wow – the sound card works!)

The resolution of the screen wasn’t perfect though as it should have been set to 1440×900 but a quick look in the resolution settings showed that it had maxed out at 1152×864 and I couldn’t set it any higher. I haven’t used Ubuntu that much but I looked in the System menu and found a hardware devices icon which looked like it may be able to help. Sure enough, my graphics card had been detected but couldn’t install the drivers as they were proprietary, and this flies in the face of the Ubuntu principals. However, a simple check box allows you to give Ubuntu permission to install the evil drivers. A reboot is supposed to be required but as I was just running the Live CD, I would have been reset back to default so I just restarted the X server by using the Ctrl+Alt+Backspace command.

Hey presto – I had native resolution!

But what about networking? Especially wireless networking – something I’ve never had any success with in Linux. I noticed a networking icon flashing in the top task bar (or what ever it’s called) and clicking on this brought up a list of wireless networks that had been detected. I selected my home wireless network, entered my WPA password and I was connected – simple as that.

This was the first time that I had sound, video and networking all working out of the box (almost) in Linux.

During this whole process my iPod had been connected through the USB cable and it showed up on my desktop with an iPod icon and the correct name. Wondering if I would be able to access the songs on it, I looked in the Applications menu and ran the Rhythmbox audio player. Surprisingly, the iPod shows up as a device in the left had side just like in iTunes – so you can browse through all the songs or the playlists and play them just as you would in iTunes.

However, there is one catch – Ubuntu doesn’t include any proprietary audio formats either, so you need to install the restricted Ubuntu extras package through the add/remove programs applet. This also installs additional fonts, Sun Java, and lots of audio and video codecs. Once installed you can plays music from your iPod through Rhythmbox!

All of the above was done using the Live CD with no reboots and without affecting the Windows installation on my notebook. I’m going to install Ubuntu properly soon so that I can also test out the new Compiz bits which make your desktop come alive with nifty and useful 3D effects. But so far I’m really impressed with Ubuntu’s latest release and it’s becoming a real contender in the desktop operating system market.

Blogtown NZ has been updated to the latest version to fix several security bugs and to add new features. One of the new features is native tagging support although this needs to be built into the themes to see the tags.