SBS 2003-to-2008 Migration Resources

SBS 2003 to SBS 2008 I wanted to bookmark some handy SBS migration resources:

SBS 2003-to-2008 Migration Checklist
File name: SBSMigrationChecklist.docx
Date Published: 06/24/2009
Version: 1.0
File size: 43 KB
Download URL: Click here

SBS 2003-to-2008 Migration Whitepaper
File name: SBS_Migration.doc
Date Published: 05/13/2009
Version: 2.0
File size: 694 KB
Download URL: Click here

SBS 2003-to-2008 Migration Click-Thru Demo
Date Published: 05/12/2009
Version: 1.0
File size: 47.5 MB (for the EXE and the documentation)
Download URL: Click here

Swing Migration for SBS 2008
Download URL: http://www.sbsmigration.com/

Also, if you’re just doing a clean install, don’t forget about Philip Elder’s document.

SBS 2008 Setup Checklist
http://blog.mpecsinc.ca/2009/04/sbs-2008-setup-checklist-v10.html

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Windows 7 Pricing Announced – Pre-Orders Go Live

Retail pricing for Windows 7 has officially been announced. Here’s the skinny on the Upgrades and the Full Packaged Products. All prices are Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail and in US Dollars

Windows 7 Home Premium WINDOWS 7 HOME PREMIUM

  • Windows 7 Home Premium (Full): $199.99
  • Windows 7 Home Premium (Upgrade): $119.99

    Update: Special Upgrade Discount until July 11, 2009
    $119.99 $49.99 each (limit 3 per customer) 

Windows 7 Professional WINDOWS 7 PROFESSIONAL

  • Windows 7 Professional (Full): $299.99
  • Windows 7 Professional (Upgrade): $199.99

    Update: Special Upgrade Discount until July 11, 2009
    $199.99 $99.99 each (limit 3 per customer) 

Windows 7 Ultimate WINDOWS 7 ULTIMATE

  • Windows 7 Ultimate (Full): $319.99
  • Windows 7 Ultimate (Upgrade): $219.99 

There is also a video with the details, including international availability: Click here

Source: Windows 7 Blog

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How To Create a FREE Password-Protected PDF

imageThis question comes up a lot:

I have the free Adobe Acrobat Reader, but not Acrobat Professional – can I still create a password-protected PDF?
I don’t feel like paying $360 for Acrobat Professional
just for the ability to do encryption or password protection.

The short answer is ‘yes’, but you’ll need another program to do it.

I recommend the FREE open source program PDF Creator 0.9.8 (16.8 MB).

Below are detailed instructions you can share with your employees and clients:
– (Part A) PDF Creator program installation instructions
– (Part B) Creating the password-protected and encrypted PDFs
– (Part C) PDF opening instructions

PART A – PDF CREATOR INSTALLATION (Boring Part)

  1. Download PDF Creator 0.9.8 from SourceForge
    http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/
  2. Double-click the PDFCreator-0_9_8_setup.exe file and choose Run.
    Choose Run
    (If User Account Control pops up in Vista or Windows 7, click Allow)
  3. Select your language (English) and click OK.
    Pick English and click OK
  4. When the setup Wizard launches, click Next.
    Setup - Click Next
  5. Accept the license agreement, and click Next.
    Accept the license agreement - click Next
  6. For Type of Installation, choose Standard installation, and click Next.
    Standard Installation - click Next
  7. For Printer name accept the default of “PDFCreator”, and click Next.
    Printer Name - click Next
  8. On Select Destination Location, accept the default and click Next.
    Default Installation Path - click Next
  9. The installation will install the PDFCreator Browser Add On (annoying) but you can later uninstall via the Control Panel.
    Uncheck “Yahoo!” and click Next.
    Uncheck Yahoo - click Next.
  10. Under Select Components, accept the defaults and click Next.
    Components - click Next
  11. On Select Start Menu Folder accept the default and click Next.
    Start Menu - click Next
  12. On Select Additional Tasks accept the defaults and click Next.
    Additional Tasks - click Next
  13. And then click Install and click Finish when the installation is complete.
    Ready - click Install then click Finish

Now that the PDF Creator program is installed, it’s time to convert a file into a password-protected PDF.

PART B – CREATING A PASSWORD-PROTECTED PDFs
(Interesting Part)

  1. Make sure the document that you want to convert is CLOSED.
  2. Right-click the icon of the document you want to convert, and choose
    Create PDF and Bitmap Files with PDFCreator from the pop-up.
    Right-click document, click Create PDF
  3. At the “It is necessary to temporarily set PDFCreator as defaultprinter” prompt click Don’t ask me again checkbox and click OK.
    Click Don't ask me again - click OK
  4. The document will open and then close again, and you will be left with a PDFCreator 0.9.8 dialog box, as shown below.Click the Options button.
    Click Options
  5. On the Options page, expand the Formats tab on the left.
    Expand Formats tab
  6. Click the PDF icon on the left, click the Security tab on the right, and check the Use Security checkbox.
    Click PDF, click Security tab, click Use Security
  7. Choose the following:
    – Encryption level (40-bit or 128-bit)
    – Password to open (user password)
    – Password to change permissions (owner password)
    – Any other user restrictions you want to set
    Pick encryption and password levels, click Save twice
  8. Hit Save on the bottom right of the Options page, and then Save again on the main PDFCreator 0.9.8 page (seen in Step 4 above).
  9. When the Save as dialog box comes up, give the file a name and
    click Save.
    Pick a file name and location - click Save
  10. PDF Creator will pop-up a small animated splash screen…image

    …and prompt you for the password you want to use to create your document. Enter the password twice and click OK.

    Pick a password - click OK

  11. If you leave the ‘Owner Password’ blank (which fine if you want to) you will get an additional dialog box letting you know that it’s blank. For more on PDF handling, read this post about whiting out a pdf document.
    Optional screen - only happens when Owner Password is blank
    Click Yes to leave the Owner Password blank, or click No to go back and add an Owner Password.
  12. Once the document is saved, it immediately tries to open in your preferred PDF reader (I use Foxit Reader) and prompts your for a password. Type the User Password and click OK.
    Enter password - click OK
  13. You should now be able to see your password-protected PDF.
    You're done dude!

Congratulations – That’s a few hoops to jump through! 🙂

PART C – WHAT THE CLIENT / RECIPIENT SEES
(The most important part)

  1. E-mail them the password-protected PDF document
  2. They open the attachment and get prompted for a password
    Enter password - click OK
  3. Once they enter the password and click OK, the PDF opens.

RECAP

  • Part A is just a one-time thing.
  • Part B is every time you want to CREATE a password-protected PDF
  • Part C is what the client (recipient) and does each time they want to OPEN the protected PDF.
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Download – Windows Mobile 6.5 Emulator

Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional Emulator Want to get your hands on Windows Mobile 6.5? Wait no longer!

Title: Windows Mobile 6.5 Developer Tool Kit
Version: 6.5
Date Published: 06/03/2009
Download size:
– WM6.5 Professional (USA) 225.0 MB
– WM6.5 Standard (USA) 71.4 MB
File type: MSI
System Requirements: XPSP3, Vista, Server 2003 SP2 
Download URL: Click here

Description:

The Windows Mobile 6.5 Developer Tool Kit adds documentation, sample code, gesture APIs, header and library files, emulator images and tools to Visual Studio that let you build applications for Windows Mobile 6.5.

Even if you’re not a WM developer, if you support Windows Mobile devices, you should download these emulator images.

Emulator Images Included:

  • Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional Square Emulator
  • Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional QVGA Emulator
  • Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional WQVGA Emulator
  • Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional VGA Emulator
  • Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional WVGA Emulator
  • Windows Mobile 6.5 Standard Square Emulator
  • Windows Mobile 6.5 Standard QVGA Emulator

Hint: You don’t need Visual Studio to use these emulator images. But if you want to these emulators to be able to communicate across the network and access the web, you’ll probably want to download and install Virtual PC 2007 (30.4 MB) if you haven’t done so already. The reason being; We just need the virtual network adapter, which is installed automatically when you install VPC 2007 – after that, we don’t need VPC 2007 anymore for the WM6.5 emulators.

Configuring the Windows Mobile 6.5 emulator to connect to the Internet

Once you’ve gotten the emulators downloaded and installed, here’s how you connect one to the network:

  1. Make sure Virtual PC 2007 is already installed (see box above).
  2. Open the emulator from the Windows Start Menu.
    Start Menu location of WM6.5 emulators
    The emulator should show a splash screen…
    WM 6.5 - Splash screen
    …and then drop you into the WM6.5 operating system.
  3. In the emulator choose File / Configure
    WM 6.5 - Configuration
  4. On the Network tab, check the Enable NE2000 PCMCIA network adapter to bind to, choose your network card, and click OK.
    WM 6.5 - Choosing a network card
  5. In the emulator, click on Start, then click on Settings
    WM6.5 - Start / Settings
  6. Click on Connections
    WM6.5 - Connections
  7. Click on Connections again
    WM6.5 - Connections again
  8. Click on the Advanced tab at the bottom, and choose Select Networks
    WM6.5 - Advanced / Select Networks
  9. Set both selections to My Work Network, and click OK twice.
    WM6.5 - My Work Network for both
  10. Once you’re back at the Today screen, click Start and then click Internet Explorer
    WM6.5 - Start / Internet Explorer
  11. On the Internet Explorer Mobile page, try searching on something to test your internet connectivity.
    WM6.5 - Search Page
  12. If you’ve done everything properly (including installing Virtual PC 2007 in the box above) you should be connected to the Internet.
    WM6.5 - Search Results 
  13. When you’re done using the emulator, you can choose File / Save State and Exit and the next time you launch the emulator (Step 2 above), you’ll pick up right back where you left off – already connected to the Internet.
    WM 6.5 - Saving State
    If you get prompted to enable the network card the next time you launch the emulator, just choose Yes.
    WM6.5 - Enable network card

Props: Thanks Chris Rue’s blog for the heads-up on the WM6.5 download.

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Downloads – Two Free OCS 2007 R2 eBooks

NOTE: This is a limited time offer, so grab it while you can!

eBook Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Resource Kit Title: Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Resource Kit
Authors: Rui Maximo, Rick Kingslan, Rajesh Ramanathan, Nirav Kamdar
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Published: February 4, 2009
ISBN: 0735626359
Pages: 879
Hard copy available: $37.79 at Amazon.com
Register for FREE download: Click here (29.4 MB)

Description:

Get the definitive resource for deploying, configuring, and supporting Office Communications Server 2007 now fully updated. Take advantage of expert insights direct from the Microsoft Office Communications Server Team. This official Microsoft RESOURCE KIT delivers in-depth technical guidance on architecture, deployment, security issues, administration, performance tuning, and troubleshooting.

Title: Programming for Unified Communications
eBook Programming for Unified Communications Authors: Rui Maximo, Kurt De Ding, Vishwa Ranjan, Chris Mayo, Oscar Newkerk, and the Microsoft OCS team
Publisher: Microsoft Press
Published: May 27, 2009
ISBN: 0735626235
Pages: 415
Hard copy available: $31.49 at Amazon.com
Register for FREE download: Click here (7.2 MB)

Description:

Get the hands-on guidance you need—direct from the Microsoft Office Communications Server product team—to streamline your organization’s real-time, remote communication and collaboration solutions. Step-by-step programming scenarios show you how to deliver high-quality VoIP, presence, click-to-communicate, and contextual collaboration across the enterprise and across time zones. You also get details on how to integrate Office Communications Server with enterprise applications like Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 and Windows Workflow Foundation. Equip yourself with the latest insider tips, and give your users greater flexibility in how, when, and where they work together and what services and devices they use to do so.

Source: Microsoft Press blog

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Crazy Screen Shots – Garbage Hard Drives

This is another odd screen shot – looks like a corrupted external drive:

image001[1]

It reminds me of  something I saw a while back:

image

Gotta love ‘plug-and-pray’. And while we’re sharing screen shots, here are a couple more:

WatchGuard screen pop-up goof…

image

Ye old MySQL server…

image

The file with no name violation…

image

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