Op 26 oktober wordt Windows 8 officieel gereleased door Microsoft. Vanaf dat moment zullen nieuwe pc’s en laptops ook standaard uitgeleverd gaan worden met Windows 8. Tevens zullen dan ook Windows 8 (RT) tablets beschikbaar komen. Zowel Microsoft zelf zal tablets verkopen (Microsoft Surface), maar ook andere grote leveranciers zullen hun eigen tablets verkopen. Ook is het de verwachting dat er steeds meer laptops met touchscreen zullen gaan komen.
Het gevolg hiervan is dat Windows 8 qua bediening enorm verandert.
Ik raad daarom ook iedereen aan met interesse in deze nieuwe versie van Windows om de “HCC Windows 8 introductiebijeenkomst” in Urmond bij te wonen:
Datum : Vrijdag 12 oktober 2012
Tijd : 20:00 – 22:00
Locatie: Gemeenschapshuis Pater Kolbe, Graetheidelaan 60, 6129 GH Urmond
Link: http://www.hcc.nl/vereniging/evenement/windows-8-introductietraining-33
Tags: hcc, hcc.nl, introductie, Learning, Training, urmond, Windows, Windows 8, www.hcc.nl
Everyone has their favourite web sites they use. These are used for different purposes and some are used more frequently than others.
To organize and share my own favourites / bookmarks, I’ve created a sharepoint list:
http://bjornhouben-web.sharepoint.com/Lists/Links that I will be updating continuously. If you’re unfamiliar with how to filter a sharepoint list, please check my previous post.
Other options to manage your own (personal) favourite web site links include:
- Using the built-in synchronisation with browsers like Firefox or Google Chome.
- Create and use a personalized start page like by example Netvibes and Protopage. These also provide options to include other resources like by example RSS feeds, weather predictions, etc. I am currently using iGoogle, but that will cease to function Q4 2013 unfortunately.
During the creation of my own list I came across kadaza.com and kadaza.nl, which also contains a great collection of categorized web sites. You can choose the main category on the left hand side after which you can further drill down by choosing subcategories on the right side.
I hope it is useful to you and should you have some great sites I’ve missed, please mention them in the comments section.
Tags: bookmark, browser, chrome, custom start page, favorite, favourite, favourites, firefox, google chrome, kadaza, manage, management, mozilla firefox, Netvibes, Protopage, site, start page, web site, website
Context
If you’re anything like me, you’ve created your fair share of user names and passwords over the years and it is likely that many more will be added in the future as well. To complicate things even more, you are probably using multiple different user names and passwords because of different requirements. Possible reasons:
- Username (because your desired username might not meet the requirements or might already be in use. Or because your -email is used as your username)
- Minimum number of characters.
- Maximum number of characters.
- (Specific) special characters required.
- (Specific) special characters not allowed.
- x number of upper case characters
- x number of lower case characters
- x number of digits.
- x number of special characters.
- Password needs to be changed every x days.
Because of the large number of accounts (I have about 200-300 accounts) it is impossible to remember them all. Even though it might be tempting to use (a couple of) the same username and password combinations for logging on, this is not recommended because it is a security risk. When one of the places where you use a specific user/password combination is compromised, all other places where you use this same combination are at risk too. In this post I will try to describe some challenges and what you can do about it.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: account, authentication, backup, best practice, best practices, certificate, Dropbox, encryption, Google Drive, keepass, keepass password manager, key, key file, keyfile, license, licenses, management, Microsoft Skydrive, mult-factor, mult-factor authentication, multifactor, multifactor authentication, Password, password generator, Password management, password manager, password recovery, secure, security, serial, serials, Skydrive, synchronization, user account, user name, username
Currently, there are many technological advancements taking place every day. To keep up with them is already very hard. To make it a bit easier I use RSS feeds to quickly filter what I think might be of importance to me.
A list of the RSS feeds I currently use can be found here , but you can also download an XML export of my RSS feeds here for easy import to your preferred RSS reader (assuming it supports XML import). I also advise you to check Microsoft’s RSS feed index so you can customize it to your own needs.
I personally use Google Reader for my RSS feeds because then my RSS feeds will be accessible from everywhere as long as I have a browser and an internet connection. When you are often on the road without an active internet connection, a dedicated client with cached articles from the RSS feed might also come in handy.
PS: The Microsoft blog rss feed had many articles added daily and can be hard to keep up with, but you can pretty quickly weed out duplicate articles and articles in foreign languages.
I hope this has been helpful to you.
Tags: bookmark, bookmarks, Cloud, developments, ESX, ESXi, favorite, favourite, gadget, Gadgets, ICT, Microsoft, news, rss, rss feed, technology, virtualization, VMware, vSphere, web site, web sites, website, websites, Windows
Microsoft is hosting a free jump start for those looking to upgrade their current Windows 2008 certification by taking exam “70-417 Upgrading Your Skills to MCSA Windows Server Windows Server 2012”.
I’ve attended some jump starts in the pasts and I really like them, so don’t miss out. Even though I’m already certified, I will be attending it as well. You will always learn new stuff AND you get the chance to get answers to any questions you still have.
Tags: 70-417, 70-417 Upgrading Your Skills to MCSA Windows Server Windows Server 2012, Free, jump start, Server, Upgrading Your Skills to MCSA Windows Server Windows Server 2012"., Windows, Windows 2012, Windows 2012 Server, Windows Server 2012
Cloud computing is getting increasingly important nowadays and I expect it to keep on growing substantially. As most ICT professionals I’ve read a lot about cloud computing and I know some parts of it. To increase (and test) my knowledge about cloud computing, I decided to try and get these certifications:
These exams don’t just focus on the technical aspects of the cloud, but also on the business aspects and what cloud computing could mean for your ITIL processes.
I passed both exams todat with scores of respectively 86% and 80%. But I have to say that I did not like the exams very much. I feel this way because cloud computing is such a broad concept and the “best” solution often depends on many factors, which of course are not provided in the exam. I think these exams would both benefit greatly from using cases/scenarios. It’s a pity I did not see any option to comment on the exam questions either.
If I’d have to choose which certification I found most valueable, I’d go with the Comptia Cloud Essentials certification.
Free study materials I used:
I thought the quality of these study materials were mediocre at best and I have my doubts about the correctness of some of the statements. Especially because cloud computing is defined in many different ways and because the “best” answer often depends on the situation which is not described. But as with everything, you can learn a lot from it by being critical and looking up everything you don’t know YET and/or have doubts about. You will learn more this way, which is far more important than just getting certified. I personally learned a lot especially about specific cloud services. Unfortunately I did not have access to paid materials, otherwise I would have loved to check out the Train Signal CompTIA Cloud Essentials training videos seeing as they have a reputation to provide high quality material.
I will now close with some wise words I read on Seth Godin’s blog post called “Curiosity was framed“:
Curiosity was framed
- Avoid it at your peril. The cat’s not even sick. (HT to C. J. Cherryh)
- If you don’t know how it works, find out.
- If you’re not sure if it will work, try it.
- If it doesn’t make sense, play with it until it does.
- If it’s not broken, break it.
- If it might not be true, find out.
- And most of all, if someone says it is none of your business, prove them wrong.
There are many more great posts on Seth Godin’s blog so be sure to check it out.
Tags: certification, certify, CLO-001, Cloud, cloud computing, Cloud Computing foundation, Cloud Essentials, CLOUDF, CompTIA, CompTIA Cloud Essentials, Curiosity was framed, Exin, Exin Cloud Computing Foundation, foundation, Free, ICT, Learning, Seth Godin, study
When I tried to include a RSS feeds web part to my public sharepoint site just the way I had done many times on intenal sharepoint sites, I found out that the RSS viewer web part was not available.
After searching the internet I found out why this was the case and I also found a workaround using a custom solution/webpart.
Even though it is possible to use RSS feeds this way on my public sharepoint site, it is not what I expected. In my opinion an RSS feed web part is such a fundamental part of websites nowadays that it should be available by default in Office 365 / Sharepoint online.
I hope that this will be corrected in the upcoming release of sharepoint (2013) for Office 365, but the preview still doesn’t provide this capability unfortunately:
Tags: Cloud, ICT, Learning, Microsoft, Office 365, Public Cloud, rss, rss feed, RSS Feed Webpart, Sharepoint, Sharepoint online, Tutorial, Tutorials, web part, webpart
When you first create a public site collection in Office 365 / Sharepoint online you get a default website that looks like this:
I personally prefer the Sharepoint 2010 site look:
To change the layout, follow the instructions in this blog post:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sharepoint__cloud/archive/2011/12/22/change-sharepoint-online-public-site-to-look-like-a-sharepoint-2010-site.aspx
Please check my website http://www.bjornhouben.com to see what it can look like after some minor customizations.
Tags: design, layout, Microsoft, Office 365, Sharepoint, sharepoint 2010, Sharepoint online, Sharepoint public site, Sharepoint site, site
At November 23rd the 1st Dutch Powershell User Group (DuPSUG) meeting will be held in November at Master IT in Eindhoven for free.
Sessions:
- Using Windows PowerShell 3.0 to manage the remote Windows 8 workstation
Ed Wilson (Microsoft Scripting Guy)
- PowerShell and WMI
Richard Siddaway (PowerShell MVP)
- What’s new in PowerShell 3.0
Bert Wolters (Microsoft Certified Trainer with Master it Training)
- Protect your PowerShell scripts with version control
Stefan Stranger (Senior Premier Field Engineer at Microsoft Netherlands)
- From command, to script, to function, to advanced function, to tool.
Jeff Wouters (freelance Technology Specialist at Methos IT)
Read more about the meeting, the sessions and the speakers here: http://www.dupsug.com/
Also keep in mind that the available seats are very limited, so quickly sign up if your interested.
Tags: advanced function, application, Bert Wolters, DuPSUG, Dutch PowerShell User Group, Ed Wilson, function, ICT, IT, Jeff Wouters, Master, Master IT, Microsoft Scripting Guy, power shell, Powershell, Powershell 3.0, Richard Siddaway, Script, Scripting, Stefan Stranger, tool, Version control, WMI
blog.bjornhouben.com 