Certification Prep – The 20 Minute Workout

I just posted how I came home to a video issue on my XP machine but the real reason I was looking forward to goofing around in my office was because I just got my pair of 2 TB drives today for my Precision 7400 system running Windows 7 Ultimate (x64) Can’t wait for the performance test on this RAID 0 configuration.

So I’ve been offline most of October – I resigned from Microsoft and started in a new position at Bloomberg (I’ll write a post on that at some point). I just wanted to drop that comment and to say that I just had an AGP video card die on my old XP system. The system was the last white box system I built about ten years ago. Six years ago in July of 2004 I upgraded the CPU, video card and power supply and reinstalled Windows XP and it’s been running rock solid ever since up until today. I pulled an old system pull video card from my parts closet and I was on my way again. I love keeping old system parts; how else can you fix your PC at 8PM on a Tuesday?

This story appeared on Network World at http://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/092810-obama-ipv6.html   NTIA workshop is current administration's first attempt at promoting next-gen Internet By Carolyn Duffy Marsan , Network World September 28, 2010 09:07 AM ET The Obama Administration bills itself as the most tech-savvy political team ever, but until now it has ignored one of the biggest issues facing the Internet: the rapid depletion of Internet addresses using the current protocol, known as IPv4, and the imminent need for carriers and content providers to adopt a new standard called IPv6.  No IPv6 plan? You're behind schedule Today, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) will host a workshop on IPv6 that features high-profile executives from government, industry and Internet policymaking organizations. This workshop is the first time the Obama Administration has given IPv6 any publicity in the 21 months it has been i...

As originally published from INFOWORLD on September 13, 2010 Organizations will migrate about 250 million PCs to Windows 7 over the next few years, and Gartner predicts there won't be enough qualified IT staffers to handle the task. It's not a Y2K-style crisis, but there's only a four-year window until Microsoft ends support for Windows XP. The need to migrate from XP to Windows 7 "will create an extra budgetary and resource burden on companies from 2011 to 2012," according to recent report by Gartner. The research firm estimates that large and midsize organizations worldwide will migrate about 250 million PCs to Windows 7 over the next few years. [ Get all the details you need on deploying and using Windows 7 in the InfoWorld editors' 21-page Windows 7 Deep Dive PDF special report . | Stay abreast of key Microsoft technologies in our Technology: Microsoft newsletter . ] Gartner predicted that demand for IT staffers qualified to handle Windows 7 mig...

So here’s the deal as provided by http://secunia.com/advisories/41340/ and http://www.adobe.com/support/security/advisories/apsa10-02.html   This is an Adobe issue. Secunia Advisory SA41340 Adobe Reader / Acrobat Font Parsing Buffer Overflow Vulnerability Secunia Advisory SA41340 Release Date - 2010-09-08 Last Update - 2010-09-09 Criticality level - Extremely critical Impact - System access Where - From remote Solution Status - Unpatched Software: Adobe Acrobat 8.x Adobe Acrobat 9.x Adobe Reader 8.x Adobe Reader 9.x   CVE Reference(s) CVE-2010-2883   Description A vulnerability has been discovered in Adobe Reader, which can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user's system. The vulnerability is caused due to a boundary error within the font parsing in CoolType.dll and can be exploited to cause a stack-based buffer overflow by e.g. tricking a user into opening a speciall...

Microsoft is bringing back the Windows 7 Family Pack in time for the Anniversary of Windows 7 - Oct. 22 is Windows 7’s 1 year anniversary. This is set to occur starting October 3 in the U.S. when Windows 7 Family Pack will be available for purchase through retail outlets and online at the Microsoft Store . The Windows 7 Family Pack gives you three upgrade licenses of Windows 7 Home Premium for $149.99 where a normal price for the upgrade version of Windows 7 Home Premium is suggested at $119.99 per license. To take advantage of the Windows 7 Family Pack offer, you’ll need a PC running a genuine copy of either Windows Vista or Windows XP that is capable of running Windows 7.

There is a blog post over on the TechNet website that discusses User State Virtualization (USV) which is a collection of Microsoft technologies that enables synchronization of user state information from individual computers to a central location. The blog post can be found via the Nexus SC: The System Center Team Blog at http://bit.ly/cTPCrb and there are some additional resources outlined as follows: Download the Beta Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide Review a demonstration on Microsoft User State Virtualization Watch a video on the Windows Springboard Series about Microsoft User State Virtualization (from 2008) Browse the other IPD Guides now available Check out the new Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit Get the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) 2010 Update 1