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Get on the Bus Tour – Montreal

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100_0695I had a chance last week to head up to Montreal and check out and help out at the Get on the Bus tour being sponsored by Microsoft.

The event started for us at 8:00am, which for me meant a 3:30am start from Kingston. I drove to Brockville and picked up David Myers and the two of us headed to Montreal. Thank goodness David picked up coffee for the ride. We arrived at the venue around 8:15 and were put to work guiding people. David and I had emailed the organizers and offered our assistance. As a leader of a user group in Kingston, I know it never hurts to have extra hands helping out.

I finished up guiding people and arrived into the theatre at around 9:20 and the Keynote was in full swing. One of the many technologies I perked up for was the Intune beta that is running right now.  For a small to medium sized business, it has great promise to help you manage your environment.

After the keynote, Office 2010 was covered off and we were presented some of the features of using Office 2010 and Sharepoint 2010 in the cloud. It definitely got me thinking on how I could use this in my environment at work; it will make life easier.

After this session Daniel Nerenberg came up and talked about App-V and Med-V. Both are virtualization technologies but very different. I will try to explain at a very high level. App-V virtualizes apps, Med-V virtualizes a Windows XP operating system which can be managed centrally.

After Daniel, Stephen Rose came up and talked about Microsoft Deployment Toolkit 2010 Beta 1. Stephen is a high energy speaker and you could really feel the energy in room  climb as he spoke. It was a great overview of the capabilities of the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit. It also showed that there are FREE tools available to help make your life easier.

After Stephen’s session, there was an Ask the Experts session. This is a photo from the session (the room was dark, so this was about the best shot I could get.)

It was well worth the time to drive up to Montreal and check out the tour. The sessions are great and if you haven’t seen Office 2010 or MDT 2010, be prepared to be awed. If the tour is coming to your neck of the woods, be sure to get out and check out the event.

Tools and information can be found, starting at the Microsoft Springboard Site,  www.microsoft.com/springboard

Media Center, Windows 7 and a Xbox360

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Ottawa’s Code Camp ran April 17th this year. I was lucky enough to be selected to make a presentation on Windows 7 Media Center, recording TV using an antenna and using the Xbox as a media extender. It is probably one of my favourite presentations so far to date.

Why? Even though it was probably one of the least technical session I have done to date ; I find it very interesting and something I have been tinkering with since Christmas.

I’ll post more details in future posts but in a nutshell here is what I have.

  • USB TV tuner that records ATSC digital
  • Windows 7 PC with Media Center and a 1.5TB hard drive
  • Xbox360 connected to the TV
  • Xbox360 remote control

The computer records TV from the antenna using the ATSC tuner. ATSC is completely digital, making the picture look great, no snow or ghosting. Files are big, 5gb per hour when recorded in HD. From there they sit on my computer. When I want to watch my show, I turn on the Xbox, hit the green button on the remote and then head to recorded TV. I then select what I want to watch and presto, I can watch my show. I can pause, fast forward and rewind, no problem.

The best part about it is that it is easy for Tracey to operate. She can setup shows to record and watch her shows with relative ease.

She said last night to me as she was watching a recorded show from the weekend, “I love the Xbox”.

For me, I love how easy it was to get everything setup. There is a lot of stuff that goes on behind the scenes, that once setup, that she doesn’t have to know or care about for her to watch her favourite shows.

New Announcements in Microsoft Desktop Virtualization

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Microsoft has an announcement on their Press site with regards to new features with Desktop Virtualization. As I travel across Saskatchewan this week doing the Windows 7 Deep Dives, one of the topics is Windows XP mode within Windows 7.  Windows XP mode had required hardware virtualization to work correctly. That left me in the cold on my little Toshiba laptop. It works great but lack virtualization technology which meant that I couldn’t run Windows XP mode. As part of the release today, they have announced that you won’t need Virtualization Technology to use Windows XP mode.

This is a good change. It allows those who would like to go upgrade to Windows 7 but have applications that need Windows XP the ability to upgrade and continue to keep the apps running in an XP environment. For me, its more about being able to demo the Windows XP mode than actually utilizing it, all my applications work under Windows 7.

The full press release can be found at: http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2010/mar10/03-18DesktopVirtPR.mspx