There are a whole bunch of guys working on videos like these and the good news is that Microsoft has commissioned more for 2009/10. So, if you’re looking for step-by-step information on perform some common tasks with Microsoft products, then it might be worth checking out the TechNet How Do I? videos.

This blog post was written by Mark Wilson for markwilson.it. Except as noted otherwise, this work is ©2004-2009 Mark Wilson and is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. (What is this footer about?)

Two more of my "How Do I?" videos available on the Microsoft TechNet website

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I’ve also started to enter some competitions and, whilst I’ve yet to enter one that earns me any money (to pay for the Nikon D700 DSLR I bought a few weeks back when the card slot packed up on my D70), I’m pretty chuffed to have scored some points in my local camera club’s print competition of late. The results are pretty subjective (I think I’ve entered some better shots than these but the judges decision is final!) but, back in February I picked up a second place in the Open category with this image of London’s St Pancras International station:

I also picked up a 3rd place in April’s Food category for this shot of some artichokes which is part of a set taken courtesy of Matt at Much Ado Catering:

This shot of a steam engine cooling down in the evening scored me a second place in the Open category for May (and print of the evening):

And this shot of a mother duck and her duckings, scored me a third place for New Life in June:

Then, just to add the icing on the cake, one of the group admins for MK Flickrites saw this wild flower meadow shot, suggested I entered it in the June challenge for Natural Landscapes) and it won (by a very narrow margin - my vote would have gone to Negative Vibes’ Summer Grass entry has I been online to vote at the end of the month):

I’m not the world’s greatest photographer (you should see some of the shots I haven’t showcased here!) but entering competitions like this is making me get out there and shoot more images. And, guess what, the more you shoot, the more you learn (and the better you get). So, if you’re a keen photographer, I recommend entering a few competitions. I’m sure my run of luck will end soon (and it took me a while to get over my bruised ego when some images were sent back from a magazine competition a few years ago with a 5-tickbox comment card that said they “lacked impact”) but I get a real buzz when someone enjoys my work. It’s definitely worth a try!

(The images in this post are ©2009 Mark Wilson, all rights reserved and are therefore excluded from the Creative Commons license used for the rest of this site.)

This blog post was written by Mark Wilson for markwilson.it. Except as noted otherwise, this work is ©2004-2009 Mark Wilson and is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. (What is this footer about?)

Shoot more images = learn and develop new skills = achieve better results

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This application locates HP printers (like the OfficeJet 6310 that the company supplied me with) on a WiFi network (using Apple’s Bonjour technology) and allows me to print images directly from my iPhone. Unfortunately, when iTunes copies images from my computer to the iPhone it “optimises” them to such a low quality that they are pretty poor when printed (even at 10cm x 15cm); however the prints from the iPhone’s camera (from my 3G model - I haven’t tried the new camera in the 3G S) are perfectly acceptable. A demonstration video and screenshots are available on the HP website.

It’s a pity that HP can’t provide a driver to give my 64-bit copy of Windows 7 more than just basic printing features on the same device…

This blog post was written by Mark Wilson for markwilson.it. Except as noted otherwise, this work is ©2004-2009 Mark Wilson and is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. (What is this footer about?)

HP iPrint application for the iPhone and iPod Touch

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As I wrote when discussing new features in the Windows Server 2008 R2 release candidate:

“I asked Microsoft’s Jeff Woolsey, Principle Group Program Manager for Hyper-V, what the problem was and he responded that memory overcommitment results in a significant performance hit if the memory is fully utilised and that even VMware (whose ESX hypervisor does have this functionality) advises against it’s use in production environments. I can see that it’s not a huge factor in server consolidation exercises, but for VDI scenarios (using the new RDS functionality), it could have made a significant difference in consolidation ratios.”

Well, it seems that there may be a silver lining to this cloud (or at least, a shiny metallic grey one) as Clive Watson highlighted the results from some testing with Remote Desktop Services (Microsoft’s VDI broker) running on Hyper-V and reported that:

“We conducted our testing using both non-SLAT and SLAT hardware and found that SLAT enabled processors increased the number of sessions by a factor of 1.6x to 2.5x compared to non-SLAT processors.”

Basically using an SLAT-enabled processor (Intel Nested Page Tables and AMD Enhanced Page Tables) in a server should make a big difference to the consolidation ratios achieved in a VDI scenario.

Of course, if SLAT allows improved performance, then other platforms will also benefit from it (although not necessarily to the same degree) but, if VDI really is a feasible technology solution (I have my doubts and consider it a “significant niche” solution), I’m sure Microsoft will come up with something for the third incarnation of Hyper-V.

This blog post was written by Mark Wilson for markwilson.it. Except as noted otherwise, this work is ©2004-2009 Mark Wilson and is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. (What is this footer about?)

Early reports of SLAT-enabled processors significantly increasing RDS session concurrency

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It’s worth noting that Microsoft made some changes this week which complicate things somewhat as, according to a communication that I received from a large account reseller (LAR):

“Effective on 1 July, 2009, with the release of Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2, System Center Server Management Suite Enterprise (SMSE) will be switched from an unlimited operating system environment to a four operating system environment. A new suite offering, Microsoft System Center Server Management Suite Datacenter (SMSD) will be introduced and will include the same products as System Center Server Management Suite Enterprise, but, it will be licensed per processor and will provide for the management of an unlimited number of operating system environments.”

Whilst this kind of makes sense because it falls in line with the Windows Server virtualisation licensing it also has the potential to affect the cost of licensing management products in a virtualised environment as, where high levels of server consolidation may have previously been achieved and managed with an SMSE, now multiple SMSDs will be required.

Further information may be found on Microsoft’s How to Buy the System Center Server Management Suites page but there is also a Server Management Suite Editions FAQ for those who want to know the details.

This blog post was written by Mark Wilson for markwilson.it. Except as noted otherwise, this work is ©2004-2009 Mark Wilson and is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. (What is this footer about?)

Microsoft System Center licensing gets a complex simplication treatment

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“Do Microsoft officially support Exchange 2007 on VMware ESX virtual machines?”

That seems a fair enough question - and not an uncommon one either in a world where many organisations operate a virtualise-first policy and so are reluctant to deploy infrastructure applications such as Exchange on physical hardware.

One of our colleagues who specialises in messaging technologies referred us to a post on the Exchange Team blog (should you virtualise your Exchange Server 2007 SP1 environment - of course “should you” and “can you” are very different issues and it may be that the best way to consolidate mailbox servers is fewer, larger servers rather than lots of little virtualised ones) as well as to the excessively wordy Microsoft Support Policies and Recommendations for Exchange Servers in Hardware Virtualization Environments on TechNet.

After reading Microsoft knowledge base article 957006 (which Clive Watson referred me to a few months ago) I was pretty confident that Exchange running virtualised was supported as long as the virtualisation platform was either Hyper-V or another technology covered by the Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP) but we wanted better than “pretty confident” - if the supportability of an environment that we design is called into question later it could be very costly and I wanted a 100% cast iron guarantee.

Then I read Matt McSpirit’s blog post about the SVVP Wizard. This three-step process not only confirmed that the environment was covered but it also gave me the low down on exactly which features were and were not supported.

So, if you’re still not sure if a Microsoft product is supported in a virtualised environment, I recommend checking out the SVVP Wizard.

This blog post was written by Mark Wilson for markwilson.it. Except as noted otherwise, this work is ©2004-2009 Mark Wilson and is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. (What is this footer about?)

The SVVP Wizard clears up a support question around virtualising Microsoft products on other platforms

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“Focus. Successful people are rarely frantic, and frantic people are rarely successful. Take a close look at your schedule and clear out the clutter.

Make you time your own. Is your diary driving you? Take control and be as careful with commitments as you are considerate of other people’s time.

Let go. Trying to achieve everything is admirable, but impossible. Realise that an active imagination will generate more proposals than there is time to get done.

Have a single point of reference. A master to-do list will triumpth over an abundance of sticky notes, text reminders and diary scribbles.

Prioritise. What’s critical in the next hours, days or weeks? Choose your priorities and fix a later time for less urgent things.

Ditch your dependants. Are there people in your team who rely on your time? Support them in solving their problems alone. They will feel more confident; you’ll find more time to breathe.

Lighten the load. Are there ideas where others can help? Match interests to tasks - could someone else write the first draft or attend a new client meeting?

Break down big tasks. Split a job into its components and tackle each part as needed, rather than struggle to do it all now.

Bring clarity through sharing. Engaging others at the start can reassure you that you’re on the right track. It also ensures their support and cuts the risk of having to invest time later.

Use others to estimate your time. Research has shown that other people give more accurate estimates of how long something takes than the person doing the task.

Get on with it. Once you have worked out where your focus is, stop organising and start doing.”

Also on my reading list whilst I was away were a couple of MindGym books that my wife bought for me some time ago and David Allen’s Getting Things Done: How to Achieve Stress-free Productivity. Paradoxically, getting around to reading books like Getting Things Done, is something I’ve been consistently failing to get done for the last couple of years! Let’s see if any of this reading helps me to be more effective when I return to work next week!

[Postscript: I wrote this post and set it to publish whilst I was away… I never did get around to reading the Getting Things Done or MindGym books. Nor did I finish the one about understanding my strong-willed child, or even the Harry Potter that I’m mid-way through. I did manage to read a few photography magazines though and catch up on my backlog of Sunday Times motoring supplements! Never mind… maybe applying some of the actions above will help me to make the time to catch up on my reading!]

This blog post was written by Mark Wilson for markwilson.it. Except as noted otherwise, this work is ©2004-2009 Mark Wilson and is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. (What is this footer about?)

Thought for the day: coping with information overload

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The basic principles have been the same for years - the “BMW” numbering scheme: 1 series, 3 series, 5 series and 7 series:

• 1-series servers are entry level servers, targetted at the SMB and High Performance Computing markets, typically with fewer enterprise features (e.g. hot plug components) on board.
• 3-series servers include HP’s 1U DL360 “pizza box” server and the ever-popular DL380 with 2 sockets and a range of storage and connectivity options.
• 5-series servers are the 4-way machines for high-end appllication workloads, with plenty of internal storage and connectivity capacity.
• The 7-series was discontinued for a while (as HP didn’t have an 8-way server) but, with increasing demands for powerful servers for consolidation/virtualisation, it was re-introduced with a DL785 that competes with other manufacturers’ servers such as the SunFire X4600.

The final digit is either a 0 (for an Intel server) or a 5 (for an AMD server). DL servers are rack-mountable (D for density), with ML for tower/freestanding servers, although some of these can also be converted to rack-mount. Each ML server is numbered 10 lower than its DL equivalent - so an ML370 is equivalent to a DL380.

A couple of years ago, HP launched its c-class blades and each blade server (prefixed with BL) was numbered as for the corresponding DL or ML server, but with 100 added to the model number - so a DL380 equivalent blade is a BL480c (c for c-class).

Finally, there’s a generation identifier (e.g. G5, G6). Each generation represents a step forward architecturally (e.g. a move from Ultra 320 to serial-attached SCSI disks, or the adoption of Intel’s latest “Nehalem” processors).

Once you know the system, it’s all pretty straightforward - and, as HP controls half the market for industry standard x64 servers, hopefully this blog post will be useful to someone who’s trying to get their head around it.

This blog post was written by Mark Wilson for markwilson.it. Except as noted otherwise, this work is ©2004-2009 Mark Wilson and is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. (What is this footer about?)

A quick introduction to HP ProLiant servers

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• Police face prosecution for obstructing photographers - A judge sees sense and warns the police about wrongful use of anti-terror laws to stop photographers taking pictures of officers.
• Dopiaza - Automatically generate Flickr sets based on defined criteria
• Twitterfeed - Automatically push any RSS feed into your Twitter status.
• PresetsHeaven - This is the site where some of the presets I use in Lightroom originate.
• Top 10 Twitter tips - Liz Male gives some good advice on how best to use Twitter.

This blog post was written by Mark Wilson for markwilson.it. Except as noted otherwise, this work is ©2004-2009 Mark Wilson and is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. (What is this footer about?)

Useful Links: June 2009

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http://api.flickr.com/services/rest/?method=flickr.photos.search&api_key=myapikey&per_page=500&format=feed-rss_200&user_id=myuserid

You can start to get an idea of the various parameters in the Flickr API explorer but it seems that the per_page limit is 50. Even so, by adding a &page=pagenumber to the URL, I can return the next page of results:

http://api.flickr.com/services/rest/?method=flickr.photos.search&api_key=myapikey&per_page=500&format=feed-rss_200&user_id=myuserid&page=2

Now all I need to do is work out how to cycle through all the pages and string them together to produce a feed with all of my images in it.

This blog post was written by Mark Wilson for markwilson.it. Except as noted otherwise, this work is ©2004-2009 Mark Wilson and is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License. (What is this footer about?)

Displaying more than 20 items in my Flickr feed

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