I quite often get asked to talk about what the future will be like and this video is excellent, it shows lots of augmented reality and the like but what really inspires me is the context computing you throughout.  Switch context, switch interface.

In this world concerned with consumerised IT where almost everyone is familiar with using a browser of some description and many are bombarded by messages about how “fast” the internet can be if you use browser X, it really is important to…(read more)

There are plenty of people out there still using Windows XP, however many parts of the operating system have needed to be updated in order to keep things going. There have been three service packs released for Windows XP since it’s inception and…(read more)

Windows Azure has now been around long enough to be a mature platform for building services on and as such IT Professionals are being asked to look at the service. Of course IT Pros are looking for slightly different things from a platform than others…(read more)

At this time of year it’s traditional for everyone to start planning for next year but what are the most important things for an IT Professional to do in the coming year?  Next year is going to be the year when we start to see widespread cloud (both public and private) adoption now that some of the big players have proven the path.  It’s going to be a year where things need to be completed and where you get things ready to take on the next set of challenges.  You need to have your client and cloud in alignment and ready to work seamlessly together.  So here’s my top list of 10 new years resolutions for the IT Pro.

1. Complete (or start if you haven’t) your Windows 7 upgrades

Lots and lots of people have already started on the path of upgrading their clients to Windows 7.  Tools like the WAIK, MDT and System Center make it easier than ever to migrate and technologies like XP Mode, App-V and Med-V and help from toolkits like ACT 5.5 take much of the pain out of ensuring application compatibility.  2011 though is the year you need to be running Windows 7 so that your users can have the best experience that you as an IT Pro can give them, better support, easier use and frankly it’s not fair to make them use an OS that had training materials distributed on VHS! 

2. Eradicate IE 6 from your company, replacing it with IE8

Internet Explorer 6 is the the scourge of web developers everywhere.  They need to develop separate fixes to make things run in IE6 that need to in other browsers, costing more in development, testing and management time.  Moving up to IE8 (which you can do on XP or along with your Windows 7 upgrade) is the way to go.  “Ahh but IE9 is on it’s way with all it’s beauty” you say.  This is true, 2011 will see IE9 land and yes, it’s true you’ll want to deploy that too, but the move to IE9 will be much easier from IE8 and besides IE8 is more manageable and more secure than any other browser(thanks to InPrivate Browsing and Filtering and being part of your regular patch infrastructure) .

A modern browser means you are protecting your customers, your company and your own reputation.

3. Start understanding and using cloud services like BPOS, Office 365, Windows Intune

2010 has definitely been a year of excitement about the cloud, it’s literally everywhere – even on a CNN panel debate a couple of days ago where they just used the term “cloud” because it was cool.  2011 will be the year that businesses start to derive value from cloud solutions, the fastest of which will be email and BPOS and Office 365 are poised to do that with true enterprise class email.  More over though the ability to manage your environment will start the move to the cloud with Windows Intune being a very good starting point. 

4. Learn new skills; upgrade your certifications

For lots of people “get a new job” will be top of their new years resolutions list.  Make it easier on yourself by upgrading your certifications.  It’s something I’m currently doing having just sat all the IT Pro entry level MTA exams.  Certifications might not mean that much to you in your current role but when you go looking having certifications on your CV gets you through that level of Recruitment consultants that are just looking for you to tick some boxes.  The most important thing though is the knowledge that you gain from doing the courses and that’s what helps you perform better in your current job.

5. Do your number one alpha geek project

It can’t all be about work.  Get your Media Center working at home.  Learn how to take great photo’s or make excellent videos with the camera you got for Christmas or in the sales.  Get yourself a Home Server to keep all your family memories safe or create your quadro-copter / UAV. 

6. Use free virtualisation solutions

Microsoft give you virtualisation for free in Windows Server 2008 R2.  Turn on the Hyper-V role and as long as you don’t install anything else on your Hyper-V server you can use your Windows 2008 R2 license again on that box.  That means you can get great density from that single bit of hardware and because it’s Windows – not some Lunix distro with hard to find drivers that needs specific hardware – you can use Hyper-V on almost any server made in the last few years.  And yes Hyper-V does the cool stuff like live migration too.

7. Build applications for the cloud

 Azure is a true cloud platform that uses almost any language that you want to build your application in so that you can architect a solution that really makes the best use of the clouds elasticity to grow and shrink and your applications and data needs.  Tim Anderson even thinks it’s ready to rock.  For a great example of an application built on Azure take a look at

8. Get Silverlight onto every corporate desktop

Silverlight is  bit of an unsung hero but it should be a part of your standard Windows 7 deployment.  It’s used by Office 2010 to make synchronising to the cloud (public and private) slicker and to train your users with free interactive training built into Office 2010.  SharePoint 2010 uses it to look even slicker and you can share corporate insights with simplicity with SharePoint and PowerPivot.  Not only that but your Developers can create super slick applications and reuse code simply thus reducing development time and costs.

9. Make sure you have good anti-malware protection

2010 saw us make Microsoft Security Essentials free for businesses of 10 computers or less and it has always been free for home use.  Install it on any machines without AV and make sure you keep it updated.

10. Get fit and loose weight

Come on you know you need to do this one too….

Simon May is an Evangelist for Microsoft specialising in Client and Cloud.  Simon’s blog covers Windows deployment and Microsoft Public Cloud, when he’s not writing for TechNet or explaining technology he’s normally playing with Media Center PCs, taking photos or renovating houses.

I’m a huge fan of IE9 which is why I made a bunch of videos about it but what I like is that we’re really pushing ahead with innovation in the space and it feels like hardly a week goes by without there being something (really) good to say about it.  The thing is it’s still in beta and not what people should be using right now you should be deploying Internet Explorer 8 as part of Windows 7 and as an upgrade to anything else. Which is why it’s super news that IE8 is included in these figures. NSS Labs have just released a report that – independently – proclaims Internet Explorer 8 and 9 the most secure browsers on the net.  Oh how things have changed!

Internet Explorer 8 stops 90% of all malware attacks and IE9 builds on this by stopping another 9% with things like Application Reputation.  To provide contrast that’s 5X more than Firefox, 9x more than Safari and 33x more than Chrome.

What does this mean to me, your average IT Professional?

It means lots of things, depending upon your point of view…

• Internet Explorer is the best browser at preventing the most common attack vector, social engineering, on the Internet.
  • Which matters to your business because there’s less risk to your corporate assets and lets face it less work clearing up the mess that uneducated, click happy users create.
• When you deploy Windows 7 you know you’re deploying it with one of the most secure browsers on the Internet.
  • Which matters because it makes deployment easier, and it’s nice and simple to keep up to date using Windows Update.
• If you have legacy versions of Internet Explorer deployed you really need to get rid of them, they are not as secure as the world now expects browsers to be.
  • That means you have to do more work to keep them going, probably in the area of edge management where you’re spending more time than is needed
    • And that’s not cost effective.

You can trust Internet Explorer 9 because of Built-in security, reliability, deployment and control

Try IE9 and check out the Internet Explorer Tech Center on TechNet

There’s been much discussion on the “devpro” email list about a “Community lunch” following the MVP Open Day on Saturday December 11th.  The discussion is about location London or Reading and the answer isn’t yet clear.

The idea of the lunch is to get Community Leaders and MVPs together for a good old chin wag about all things community and to have a bit of pre-Christmas Holiday Season fun.  I’d personally like to meet everyone and so would Claire (the new MVP lead).
The advantage of Reading is two fold; Some MVPs will be there naturally as they will have stayed over Friday evening and secondly, Claire has some money if the day is in Reading - the reason that she doesn’t have it if we need to travel into London is that we’ve both got families who would like to see us (I actually also have to get to a fancy dressed party wearing pijamas, a dressing gown and carrying a towl – yes Arthur Dent from Hitchickers, I digress…)

The advantage of London is that lots of people have to travel via London in some way or live there or can get there more easily than Reading.

So I thought I’d post a poll, it’s limited to 100 responses (but I can add a 2nd poll if I see it fill up fast with no clear winner).

One year ago today we showed the first look of the Chakra JavaScript engine that powers Internet Explorer 9 and people said it was fast.  They need to eat their words…it’s no longer fast…it’s faster than that…it’s the fastest JavaScript engine on earth according to the WebKit SunSpider micro-benchmark.  I’m sure the guys in the team will grab a beer coffee say “cheers!” and then go back to work.  They’ll be back at work for two reasons, the first is that IE9 gets innovation, blowing this micro-benchmark out of the water is just one sign.  The second reason is that they really get what speed is about and it’s not just about JavaScript, despite what some people will tell you. 

Measuring the performance of a browser, subsystem by individual subsystem, is inherently flawed because it’s not how real sites work and it doesn’t reflect how subsystems perform together.

So what else matters to real world performance if it’s not just JavaScript?  Well actually lots of aspects.  Hardware acceleration is a major factor and will be a rising star in performance terms as more websites use more complex HTML5.  Another is load time of the browser itself.  If you think about how you use your browser you tend to “dip in” when you need a web page so if you have the site you need pinned to your task bar then it’s faster to get loaded.  When you do Internet Explorer 9’s ability to monitor the performance of Add-ons and to disable the ones that seem to be stuck in the mud is a big help. 

A crude example of how much more there is to the web than just JavaScript is visible with almost any site if you hit F12 in Internet Explorer 9 and watch a network trace (not as complex as it sounds) you’ll be able to see that less than half of what’s loaded for a site like msn.co.uk is actually JavaScript, most of the site is words, layout and pictures.  That’s a typical story across the web.  All up speed matters more than just one element of the browser but it’s nice that Chakra is adding to that real world speed and is now 310% faster than it was a year ago when it was previewed at PDC according to this benchmark.

What can you do now?  You can try it for yourself at www.ietestdrive.com and just like the other previews it will run along side your current Internet Explorer install.