Nov 27
Tech jobs are often hard, thankless, and generally unpleasant—but rarely do you see a company tell you, straight up, it’s going to be miserable. The next systems admin for geeky web comic Penny Arcade certainly has their work cut out of them.
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Jul 11
Microsoft doubles support lifecycle for Windows Phone 8, outlines enterprise feature update
Posted in: Today's Chili
Considering Microsoft’s history of supporting desktop operating systems past their expiration date, learning that Windows Phone 8 would be cut off from updates after a short 18 months was a bit of a slap to the face. Thankfully, Redmond has come to its senses: as of this week Microsoft has doubled its mobile OS’ support life cycle. Devices running Windows Phone 8 will be sustained through January 2016, provided your carrier of choice chooses to make the update available to you. The company hopes this will make the platform more appealing to enterprise users. Speaking of courting the business crowd, the official Windows Phone Blog also outlines a set of enterprise-specific features, including new options for corporate-level email, WiFi and application management. The full info with all the high-level security features you can handle is in the links below.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Microsoft
Source: Windows Phone Blog
Jul 01
Many IT managers and early adopters cherish their TechNet subscriptions — for a modest annual fee, they get advance access to a treasure trove of Microsoft apps. Unfortunately, that too-good-to-be-true deal is coming to an end, as Microsoft plans to phase out TechNet subscriptions in the months ahead. The company will stop taking new customers and renewals after August 31st, while Microsoft Certified Trainers will lose their perks after March 31st. Outside of volume licensing, TechNet downloads will stop entirely after September 30th, 2014. MSDN subscriptions will remain, but their steeper prices will likely rule them out for most enthusiasts. If you’re not a professional, you’ll just have to buy software as it reaches the public — you know, like the rest of us.
Filed under: Software, Microsoft
Via: ZDNet
Source: TechNet
Jun 03
Microsoft CIO Tony Scott is now former Microsoft CIO Tony Scott. He stepped down recently to “focus on personal projects,” according to a statement issued by Redmond. Microsoft reps issued Engadget the following statement this morning:
“Tony Scott decided to depart Microsoft to focus on personal projects. While at Microsoft, Tony was a strong IT leader passionate about taking Microsoft’s technology to the next level and using our experiences and learnings to help customers and partners. We thank Tony for his contributions and wish him well.”
Geekwire spotted a note on Scott’s LinkedIn listing his gig at Microsoft as his “former” job (the page now reflects otherwise), and Microsoft confirmed his departure; the company also said vice president of IT product and services management Jim Dubois would step in to fill Scott’s role for now, until Microsoft finds a full-time replacement. Scott also confirmed the news, and offered a few more details on his next steps — he said he’d return “to ‘work’ (in some form) in a few months.”
Update: This post originally referenced film director Tony Scott, and has been amended since. We regret any implications that were perceived.
May 22
NVIDIA enables full virtualization for graphics: up to eight remote users per GRID GPU
Posted in: Today's Chili
You probably won’t have noticed the following problem, unless you happen to be the IT manager in an architecture firm or other specialist environment, but it’s been an issue nonetheless. For all our ability to virtualize compute and graphical workloads, it hasn’t so far been possible to share a single GPU core across multiple users. For example, if you’d wanted 32 people on virtual machines to access 3D plumbing and electrical drawings via AutoCAD, you’d have needed to dedicate eight expensive quad-core K1 graphics cards in your GRID server stack. Now, though, NVIDIA has managed to make virtualization work right the way through to each GPU core for users of Citrix XenDesktop 7, such that you’d only need one K1 to serve that workforce, assuming their tasks were sufficiently lightweight. Does this mean NVIDIA’s K1 sales will suddenly drop by seven eighths? We couldn’t tell ya — but probably not.
Filed under: Networking, Software, NVIDIA
Apr 08
Microsoft to build first innovation center in China, has software development in mind
Posted in: Today's Chili 
Microsoft’s relatively often finding ways to encourage software development in various fields, and the company’s latest venture has it setting footsteps near the Great Wall. According to a report by news agency Xinhua, the software (and hardware) company has reached a deal with China’s Hainan government that will see it build an innovation center in this territory. Focusing on IT development and skills in tourism and agriculture, this new property will be the first of its type in China, and Microsoft has high hopes that the joint efforts can, aside from becoming a crossroads of knowledge, also “boost the region’s efforts to become a major international tourist destination.” Frankly, seeing as how the highly populated nation doesn’t appear to be slowing down its all-around growth anytime soon, it wouldn’t surprise us if Redmond decides to start setting up more of these in the years to come.
Via: ZDNet
Source: China Daily
Feb 04
Man Spends Three Years of His Life Destroying Company Servers With Cleaning Supplies
Posted in: Today's Chili
In 2009, Edward Sobolewski was passed over for a raise in his job at British market research firm Frost and Sullivan. So he spent the next three years of his life destroying the company’s servers using cleaning supplies. That’s what you call a long con. A very long, very sad con. More »
Sep 28
Microsoft details its own Windows 8 rollout, lessons learned from ‘dogfooding’
Posted in: Today's Chili 
If a company won’t use its own products, how can it expect others to? Many customers, especially on the enterprise side of the equation, are understandably a little wary of the drastic change that awaits them when upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 8. So, Microsoft decided to share what it has learned from its own experience dogfooding the new OS around the Redmond campus (and likely beyond). While the company is a little light on specifics of the low-volume rollout, it does highlight some of the features available to IT departments that should make transitioning easier. It even offers a few pointers along the way. Sure, there’s plenty of back-patting involved, but tips like using IT Easy Installer to automate deployments and trim install times by half shouldn’t be dismissed. There’s also some information about its support system for early adopters which included a knowledge base called Pointers that helped highlight the most important issues needing to be addressed. For more details hit up the source link and get ready to embrace your inner IT nerd.
Filed under: Software, Microsoft
Microsoft details its own Windows 8 rollout, lessons learned from ‘dogfooding’ originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Sep 2012 17:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Sep 24
Microsoft extends free Windows Server 2008 support through January 15th, 2015
Posted in: Today's Chili 
Now that its successor is available, you’re unlikely to hear much excitement for Windows Server 2008 around IT water coolers, but that’s not to suggest it’ll fade into oblivion anytime soon. In fact, Microsoft has extended its mainstream support of the server OS — previously set to expire on July 9th, 2013 — through January 15th, 2015. The company will continue to deliver free security fixes for the operating system beyond this cutoff date, however maintenance updates will require the purchase of extended support from Microsoft. According to the company’s revised product lifecycle, paid updates for Windows Server 2008 will now be available through January 14th, 2020. For those curious, the new dates were largely determined by Microsoft guidelines, which guarantee a minimum five years of support, or in this case, two years of mainstream support beyond the release of the successor product. Naturally, it pains us to imagine firms chugging along with Windows Server 2008 into 2020, but you just know it’ll happen. Now, at least someone in Redmond will be watching out for them.
Filed under: Software
Microsoft extends free Windows Server 2008 support through January 15th, 2015 originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Sep 2012 22:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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