Microsoft Subnet will out of the office for a nice relaxing four-day weekend 
in celebration of Independence Day. We'll be back in action blogging on all-things-Microsoft on Tuesday. In honor of the holiday
(and a four-day weekend!) we have dug up some free Microsoft-related 4th of July goodies to share with our readers:
The 4th of July photo album template for Word 2007. Allows you to easily create scrap book pages with 4th of July borders and other imagery. The 4th of July greeting card template for Word 2007. Allows you to send a happy holiday message to your friends and family.A free high-resolution 4th of July, red-and-blue stars image for use with Microsoft Office including Publisher. The image can be used as a photo album cover
or as a background image. American flag labels for magnets, window decals and stickers (works with Avery printing labels). MORE 4TH OF JULY FREEBIES
Microsoft this week released its Hyper-V virtualization server, which has been years 
in the making. Today the technology lacks the breadth of functionality VMware offers, but now that the technology is readily available, could Microsoft wrest market share from VMware with its no-cost entry point and by shipping the technology with Microsoft Server 2008? Forrester Research Analyst Christopher Voce weighs in on the topic. (14:39)
Listen:
Consortiums seem to be back in vogue07/03/08This new consortium of software makers that make products to allow Windows apps (and Windows infrastructure) to work with Macs is but one example of a new consortium in recent weeks. (Microsoft, along with Cisco, IBM, Intel and Juniper also formed a new security consortium to fight multi-vendor zero day attacks.) Macs are coming back into the enterprise, mostly from high-level execs in love with their super slim MacPro laptops.
Massive new server project at BMW to be based on Virtual Server 200307/02/08Microsoft Germany announced that Windows Server 2003 (not 2008) would be the server platform of choice for BMW dealerships,
according to the Microsoft Windows Virtualization Product Group blog. About 3,500 dealers will average a roll-out of two 64-bit servers each hosting about 20 client devices per location, the blog says. Even more interesting, the blog says that BMW will at first use Virtual Server 2005 R2 (not Hyper-V) on each server to consolidate and run its .NET-based applications, along with some business process integration apps and assorted other software. An upgrade to 64-bit Windows Server 2008 and Hyper-V is, however, planned.
One of the ways that Microsoft XP is living on is as an operating system choice for low-cost PCs. Microsoft had at first severely 
limited the hardware that qualified as a low-cost PC eligible for XP. But today, IDG News Service reports that Microsoft is easing those restrictions. The story says:
The Office suite formerly known as Albany now has an official name, "Equipt" and a new low price, an annual 
subscription fee of $69.99 per year. Equipt is geared for the home/student and includes Office Home and Student 2007, Windows Live OneCare, Office Live Workspaces, Windows Live Mail, Live Messenger and Live Photo. A story from IDG News Service reports that Microsoft plans to begin selling it in the U.S. on July 15 through Circuit City, with other outlets to follow. It will be offered in other countries at about the same time, though pricing elsewhere was not announced.
The following post is a guest blog from new Google Subnet blogger Garett Kopczynski who this week launched Network World's Google
Watcher blog. Kopczynski is an IT professional for the city of Keene, N.H., and has been involved in the transformation of the IT group as it increasingly explores cloud computing and Google Apps. He writes: I am seeing the evidence of a fundamental shift to open source. The clunkiness of the IT world I have experience with brings to mind the time when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and mammals waited in the wings. As people are exposed to the possibilities of server side applications and program alternatives, I think they will feel less obliged to go with the current standard. AOL, for instance, was the easiest option for Internet in the 1990's, and yet it is no longer an indomitable presence. Open source could spell extinction for the current IT standards.
Microsoft news from Network World
5 Things You Need To Know About Hyper-VI was fortunate to receive a Twitter message from the Microsoft virtualization team after writing my blog post A Weekend With Hyper-V. If you aren't familiar with the Windows ...Read more
Mitchell Ashley is a serial entrepreneur who is currently CEO and Chief Strategist of his fourth company, Converging Network, LLC.
How do you clean up credential roaming?Some time ago, I posed and attempted to answer the question: How much space does Credential Roaming really take? Based on the information that I provided in that post, you ...Read more
Tyson Kopczynski is a specialist in Active Directory, Group Policy, Windows scripting, Windows Rights Management Services, PKI, and IT security practices and the author of Windows PowerShell Unleashed.
Recover My Files: Nothing is lost forever!In an age of “real time” snapshots and Terabytes of storage, one might start to reason “As long as I live, I will never lose data again”. Sorry for the ...Read more
Ron Barrett is president of RARE-TECH, an IT training and consulting company. He is a co-author of The Administrator's Guide to Microsoft Office 2007 Servers, How to Cheat at Administering Office Communications Server 2007, and a contributor to many other titles.
New certificate level from Microsoft lets you be the ‘Master’ of your own domain (or SQL or Exchange)At the TechEd conference last month Microsoft announced that they would be adding a new certificate level to their existing list. I posted a blog a couple of weeks ago, ...Read more
Chip Wenz is an instructor for New Horizons and holds is a MCSE, MCSA+M, MCDBA, MCAD, MCSD, MCTS, MCPD and MCT. New Horizons offers a monthly giveaway for free training. See right column for details.
Now that you have you’re A+ and Network + -what is next?Remember that this is the MICROSOFT Subnet - this is where I talk about Microsoft certification, issues etc. So what I am going to recommend next might cause ...Read more
Randy Muller, MCT, MCSE, MCSA, MCDST, is currently an instructor with Global Knowledge. Global Knowledge sponsors a monthly giveaway on Microsoft Subnet (see details, page right: Giveaways and Contests ... HINT: June trivia answer is "beta test").
Imagine Cup 2008 is LIVEA colleague of mine (my boss) at Convergent Computing, Rand Morimoto, is the head judge for the 2008 Imagine Cup competition. His 4th year running. He’ll be blogging live from ...Read more
When not writing Microsoft-related books, Alex is a senior IT consultant and involved in many early adopter and TAP programs, working with new technology often 2-3 years before public release.
Books Online saves the day again - Configuring Filestream dataOne of the great features of SQL Server 2008 is Filestream data support. I wrote a blog entry on this option which allows us to store large data objects outside ...Read more
Brian D. Egler, MCITP-DBA/MCSE/MCT, is currently an instructor with Global Knowledge, teaching various Microsoft training courses. Enter the free monthly giveaway sponsored by Global Knowledge. Details are on the right of this page.
Great advice – 11 ways to make your SharePoint site more user-friendlyI highly recommend this post from Sadie Van Buren’s blog. Sadie is a SharePoint consultant at Knowledge Management Associates. She’s got some really helpful insights on topics that I’ve also ...Read more
When not co-authoring books such as Essential SharePoint 2007, Sue Hanley is an information architect.
Good Concept, Sloppy ExecutionI have gone on record more than once in support of Microsoft's distinguishing between roles and features, in the Server Manager console. To quote Microsoft's own help system, "A server ...Read more
Glenn Weadock is an instructor with Global Knowledge, teaching the MCSA, MCSE, Server 2008 and Vista tracks. WIN a free 'Cool Stuff' gift from Global Knowledge. See details to the right of this page.
The best freebie addons for OpsMgr 2007When you first install Operations Manager 2007, you may be a bit overwhelmed with all the information that is available to you (if you could figure out what it is ...Read more
Kerrie Meyler's current book, System Center Operations Manager 2007 Unleashed is now available. Check out out this free chapter.
20 most useful Microsoft sites and moreMicrosoft Subnet is dedicated to make your job easier and your day more fun. Here are a few of our biggest hits:
20 great Windows open source projects you should get to know
6 free security tools you shouldn't live without
20 most useful Microsoft web sites
10 funniest Microsoft YouTube videos
9 worst Microsoft products
Library of free chapters from best-selling Microsoft books Read More
Vista bashing popular but inaccurate
Your migration and deployment toolbox in WS2008
Gartner Predicts Comet Strikes Microsoft in 2011
Microsoft Mesh could end Windows OS as we know it
Converging on Microsoft podcast series 03/13/08, Network World
Mitchell Ashley talks with interesting people about topics in the world of Microsoft.
Latest episode: David Lynch discusses managing virtualized environments 3/31/08 (30:54)
Previous episode:
Mike Rothman on all things security
03/12/08 (26:16)
All previous episodes.
Todd Bishop's Microsoft Blog
The Road to Know Where
The Converging Network
istartedsomething
Groklaw
Scobleizer
ScottGu's Blog
CyberNet
Microsoft TechNet Edge
Eileen Brown's WebLog
Dmitry's PowerBlog: PowerShell and beyond
footnoted.org
All about Microsoft
Robert McLaws: Windows Vista Edition
Network World's blogs
Critical vulnerability in Microsoft XML Core Services patched
Microsoft Security issued a patch for a critical vulnerability affecting all supported editions of Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Microsoft Office 2003, and the 2007 Microsoft Office System. The hole is in Microsoft XML Core Services and could allow remote code execution if a user viewed a malicious Web page using Internet Explorer. Users whose accounts are configured to have fewer user rights on the system could be less impacted than users who operate with administrative user rights.
READ MORE
A MICROSOFT TRAINING COURSE WORTH UP TO $2,500 FROM NEW HORIZONS
New Horizons Computer Learning Centers is sponsoring a monthly contest on Microsoft Subnet. One lucky reader will win a free Microsoft training course worth up
to $2,500. Next deadline is July 31. Check out the New Horizons' catalog and start dreaming of your free class. Entry details available here. (Hint: answer is "Try things out" and can be found here.)
WIN FREE BOOKS FROM PEARSON EDUCATION
Win one of 15 copies of the book Essential PowerShell by Holger Schwichtenberg, published by Addison-Wesley Professional (a $39.99 value). Plus, READ a chapter excerpt. Entry details available by clicking here. (Hint: answer is "".NET Framework 2.0 or later" and can be found here.)
A $500 GIFT CERTIFICATE FROM GLOBAL KNOWLEDGE
Global Knowledge is offering a $500 gift certificate to be given to one lucky Microsoft Subnet reader. Entry details available by clicking here. (Hint: answer is " and can be found "here."IPv6" and can be found here.)
In response to the recent onslaught of SQL injection attacks against Web sites using ASP, Microsoft has developed a new static code analysis tool for finding SQL Injection vulnerabilities. Web developers can run the tool on their ASP source code to identify the root cause of the attack. The tool will also scan ASP source code and generate warnings related to first order and second order SQL Injection vulnerabilities.
PRODUCTCheck out Microsoft Research's WorldWide Telescope. Download this and turn your computer into a virtual telescope, based on imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes in the world.
LEARNINGMicrosoft's Second Shot program has been extended until June 30. Get a free second chance to pass your Microsoft Certification exam. This offer covers any IT professional, developer, project manager, or Microsoft Dynamics certification exam. Just register for this offer before your first exam, and you will get two chances to pass.
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