The videos of the “Virtualization for VMware Professionals Jump Start” have been posted to the Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA):
https://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/tracks/microsoft-virtualization-for-vmware-professionals
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend this session live, but thanks to MVA I can still view the recordings when it is convenient for me.
Beware: It seems there are different models of the Acer Iconia Tab W700 in different regions around the world, so pricing and specs may differ. This article covers the NT.L0EEH.002 model with an I3 processor as sold in the Netherlands.
Click the image for a slide show
First of all, for me it was obvious my type of use would require a Windows 8 tablet. An iPad, Android or Windows RT tablet would not meet my needs. For more information about differences, please read my previous post.
Since I was looking for a Windows 8 tablet, I’ve tried many different ones intended either for consumers or companies/professionals. My favorite among all these tablets was the new Samsung Series 7 slate with a i5 processor and a S-pen for digital note taking/writing.
Still I decided to order an Acer Iconia Tab W700 tablet (NT.L0EEH.002) because of the specifications, price and all the included extras:
+Full Windows 8 (not Windows RT).
+Good specs (i3 CPU with Intel HD Graphics 3000, 4GB RAM, 64GB SSD, 11.6″ screen, 1920*1080 resolution).
+Dock, keyboard and proper brown cover are included.
+No other Windows 8 tablet with similar specs and peripherals comes even close to its price (599 euros at the time I bought it).
+Micro HDMI.
+Included adapter Micro HDMI to VGA-out.
+Charges quickly.
+No proprietary stuff.
There are however some compromises I accepted as well:
-CPU is not an i5 or i7 CPU.
-No GPS.
-No built-in 3G (can use USB dongle though).
-No memory card slot (can use USB flash drive / USB disk though).
-No digitizer in the screen / pen support.
-Keyboard is separate Bluetooth device (not a docking, and therefore also no additional battery life and more difficult to carry around).
-The tablet can become warm to the touch. Not noticeable when using the included cover.
-It is not fanless and if you listen very good, you can hear the fan sometimes.
-It might be a bit on the thick and heavy side for some.
-The plastic dock is a nice extra, but the build quality could’ve been better.
-Screen is reflective (as most devices nowadays)
-The power adapter is relatively big.
-Boot from USB flash drive doesn’t seem to be supported. Reinstall requires USB CD/DVD drive.
Even though I don’t need it yet, I would have really enjoyed to be able to expand the storage using a memory card slot. I would also have liked the digitizer/pen, because this would make life easier sometimes when I have to do some stuff in the regular Windows 8 interface.
Besides the specs, I can also say that it’s not just specs. The device feels solid, looks great, boots quickly, has a beautiful screen, has a responsive touch screen and the battery life is good as well (6-10 hours depending on the use). All in all it just works great and it’s a very complete package, so you don’t need to buy any additional stuff.
After using it for about 1,5 months I can honestly say that I don’t want to be without a Windows 8 tablet anymore, because it gives me much more freedom to do stuff when and where I want.
I personally use it mainly in tablet mode to:
I also have a good desktop and laptop, but if you don’t have either … this tablet can be used as a replacement. You might however want to attach a bigger screen of course.
You might also want to check out other reviews of the Acer Iconia Tab W700. The only one of the same model I have is in Dutch: http://www.tabletguide.nl/review/acer-iconia-tab-w700-review/
You could also check these international reviews, but once again keep in mind that they review different models with another CPU, a different size SSD and also a different price:
If you still have any questions, please leave a comment and I will get back to you.
The System Center Universe videos and presentations are available at http://www.systemcenteruniverse.com. I’ve only been able to browse through them a bit, but it seems very promising.
Also if you’ve missed it in the past, you might also want to take a look at the NIC 2013 (Nordic Infrastructure Conference) session at http://nicconf.com/
In the past I’ve seen numerous occasions where work had to be transferred to other parties. While you can provide them with documentation and support, it is often overlooked that the employees of the other parties require certain competences and skills as well. The image below shows a sample with generic competence and skill requirements that are often appropriate for (good) ICT employees.
The Word version can be found here.
I hope it is useful for some.
Today Microsoft has released its Surface Pro and despite the not overly positive reviews, the 128GB model has apparently sold out in many places.
I personally really like the Windows 8 tablets (I own an Acer W700), but I think the pricing for the Surface Pro is still too steep at the moment for the majority of people. Still it should be enough to get people to think about all the great possibilities with Windows 8 tablets.
So let’s wait and see what 3rd parties will do and what will happen to prices over time. I do expect businesses to adopt Windows 8 tablets quite quickly though. Especially since the sales of regular PC’s aren’t doing that well.
For now, I will leave you with links to a couple of reviews so you can see what other people think:
The videos of the “Introduction to Hyper-V Jump Start” have been posted to Microsoft Virtual Academy:
https://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/tracks/introduction-to-hyper-v-jump-start
Unfortunately however, the link to the Q&A transcript has only been sent by mail to participants. The Q&A has very valuable information in it as well, so be sure to take a look at it here.
[EDIT] I mailed the MVA people and they added the Q&A to the MVA website as well. Love the MVA [EDIT]
In the past I’ve created a post to get my public site to become a SharePoint 2010 style team site. The only thing I’d been missing since was a way to allow public/anonymous users to use the search (when trying to perform a search you would have to logon).This also meant that filters in the lists I created weren’t working 😦
Because of the unsupported customizing I did on the SharePoint site, I thought this just wasn’t possible.
Thankfully however, a visitor of my blog (Denis) came across my post “Provide anonymous access to sharepoint lists on Office 365 (Sharepoint online)” and shared this blog post to enable search for an Office 365 / SharePoint Online public site which refers to https://dotnetmafia.sys-con.com/node/1918049/mobile
So now my website http://www.bjornhouben.com and all the content inside it, including the lists is completely searchable.
Thanks again Denis.
Sometimes your laptop or tablet speakers just won’t do. Either because the sound quality isn’t very good or because they aren’t loud enough.
Because of this, I decided to buy the X-mini MAX Gun Metal
X-mini MAX Gun Metal
X-mini UNO Gun Metal
X-mini MAX Gun Metal:
I’ve been looking for a good video that gives you an idea of the sound quality, but none really do it justice. You really have to hear it by yourself. I know (some) MediaMarkt shops in the Netherlands have them, so if you’re interested you might want to test it there. For those that still want to have an impression, check out this youtube video of another version of the X-mini speaker:
Even though I really like the X-mini MAX Gun Metal, there is still room for improvement. By example:
X-mini also has a lot of cool other versions of their speakers like by example a Bluetooth version, a version with a built-in mp3 player and a version with a built-in radio tuner. So be sure to check out their website.
On a closing note, Fujifilm has unveiled bendable foldable roll-up speakers. So there’s still much more cool stuff coming for portable speakers.
A friend of mine who is still a student has been building his own VMware lab environment for some time now. Yesterday he contacted me that he couldn’t get the “VMware VirtualCenter Server service” to start anymore.
The log showed: EventID 7021 “The VMware VirtualCenter Server service terminated with service-specific error 2 (0×2).”
A quick google search however showed that many things could be causing this error. Because it was a lab environment, I wanted to upgrade the virtual center to the latest version. Before doing so, I took a look at the VMware blog post covering the latest update 5.1.0B. In the readme it said:
“SSO service dependency on MS SQL
When SSO is installed with local Microsoft SQL Server, the services must start in a specific order.
SSO must start after SQL Server starts. If SSO starts before SQL Server starts, restart the SSO
server after SQL server starts.”
Doing so resolved the issue. To prevent the issue from re-occurring, I made the SSO service dependent on the SQL service.
I don’t understand why this is not part of the automated installation process though 😦
blog.bjornhouben.com 