Wednesday 28 September 2011

Linkbait: September 2011 - Industry News and Views

My colleague Carl has compiled a list of interesting links and news bulletins that may interest you. I always find these links worth at least a quick skim - so, have a read.


Platform News
It is not just WindowsXP that is due to be unsupported in the near future, Office 2003, Windows Server 2003, Exchange 2003, SCCM 2003 are on their way out too
Control multiple computers with one keyboard and mouse without a KVM with a new Microsoft tool.
Have you ever wondered where the XP default wallpaper was photographed? The story goes that the grapes normally growing in the California valley had a disease that year and grass was growing instead.

Virtualisation News
ThinApp is on a new version, 4.6.2 with all kinds of new improvements and extra compatibility.
Funky 1970s Microsoft video taking a shot at VMWare.
Lots of new images of prebuilt VMs are available for download

Windows 8 News and Rumours
An incomplete developer preview of Windows 8 and Windows Server 8 has been released at //build/ conference, 500,000 people downloaded it in the 1st 24 hours, it has already began receiving updates
The official Windows 8 forums are at http://win8.ms/forums
There were 300+ features that were not shown at the conference.
Hyper-V is included in the workstation release
It doesn’t work in all virtual environments.
A Microsoft engineering blog dedicated to building (hype about) Windows 8 featuring videos, interviews and stories
Windows 8 boots differently and faster than Windows 7, here’s how it works.
Windows 8 may include phone capabilities.
Many of the new features requiring a touch screen have been tested on older computers.
You can boot off a USB stick, but what happens if you take it out?

Internet Buzz

Browser News
IE 9 and 10 now get 100% on the ACID3 test because the criteria have been lowered.
A widely-reported story about Internet Explorer users being stupid was a hoax

Office News
Learn best-practices in Outlook with this free online course of videos.
Amiproject is a very impressive-looking online viewer for MS Project files.

Packaging News
InstallShield 2012 has been released, meh.
All dedicated packagers should see the new Bruce Willis movie called “Setup
Windows 8’s MSI is barely changed



No comments: