Category: Microsoft
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The Microsoft Store: The place to be this week-end
If you are in or around the Greater Toronto Area this week-end then there is no better place to be than the Microsoft Store in Yorkdale Mall. The first international store and the largest in the chain, the opening of Microsoft’s newest retail store can only be descried as a huge success, with literally hundreds…
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The Shoemaker is No Longer Barefoot!
This post was originally written for the Canadian IT Pro Connection blog, and can be seen there at http://blogs.technet.com/b/canitpro/archive/2012/09/13/the-shoemaker-is-no-longer-barefoot.aspx. For years I have been espousing the need to and value of locking down client workstations in a corporate environment. Part of the SWMI Story – the secure, well-managed IT infrastructure for which I named my…
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The Dawn of a New Day
As I sit in my office getting ready to close up, it is a little after 10pm, September 3rd, 2012. That makes tomorrow a very important day in the world of IT. Microsoft has announced that on September 4th, 2012 they will make Windows Server 2012, the newest generation of one of the most successful…
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A Dichotomy of IT Conferences
As I fly south from Toronto I am heading to two separate and very different conferences. I am new to neither one, and am looking forward to both. As they are very different conferences, I am looking forward to them both in very different ways. SBS Migration – A Party with a Conference Theme The…
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Quoted by Microsoft Learning!
It is kind of cool when I find out that Microsoft Learning wants to feature a quote of mine on one of their pages. Veronica Sopher and I met in Redmond (well, Bellevue actually) in February and discussed at length some of the steps that Microsoft Learning is taking to engage the community, specifically MCTs. …
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Where Do Ethics Fit?
As a longtime supporter of Microsoft and a believer in and advocate of its products, I have often been confronted by others about the evils of Microsoft, ranging from how historically Microsoft has bullied or bought out competitors to how expensive and flawed their products are. The products that Microsoft releases are now considered some…
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It’s About You: Tell Microsoft How They Are Doing!
It is NSAT time! Microsoft Canada has asked me to post this to the site to give you all a way of letting them know how you think they are doing! -Mitch Every fall and spring, a survey goes out to a few hundred thousand IT folk in Canada asking what they think of Microsoft…
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Need Help With Software Licensing? Read On…
I have been asked by some friends at Microsoft Canada to post this article (and two others) for you. Please feel free to provide any feedback, but I hope the resources and information are useful! -Mitch Figuring out which software licensing options best suit your needs while being cost-effective can be confusing. Some businesses end…
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Desktop Virtualization Debate!
I’ll be there… will you? VDI is important, and this session from Citrix and Microsoft is a must see for you if you are thinking about it! -M REAL TALK FEATURING CITRIX AND MICROSOFT Live, uncensored and truly unplugged discussion of the merits of desktop virtualization. March 20, 2012 | 2:00pm – 3:15pm EST Click…
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A Report from the MVP Global Summit
The week before the MVP Summit I got an e-mail asking me if I would be interested in blogging about the Summit for Microsoft Press. As I was planning on blogging anyways I agreed… and rather than posting several smaller articles here, I sent one giant article to Microsoft; it was published today at blogs.msdn.com,…
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Have a Cup of Coffee (or two!) on us…
What a great deal… Microsoft Canada has posted a link to download the Release Candidate editions of System Center <fill in the blank> 2012, which are all in pre-release and ready to test (and are fully upgradeable to the final RTM versions!) directly. However because the total package is about 6GB, it will take a…
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On airline staff and Windows 7…
Yesterday morning as I walked up to the Maple Leaf Lounge at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport (YYZ) I was greeted by Tony Falcone, one of the Air Canada agents that I meet from time to time. As he looked up my Aeroplan number I fumbled with my Samsung Focus phone (barely avoiding dropping it), and…
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A Brief History of how Microsoft (and others) Changed the World… Part 2
On July 7, 2011 I posted the first instalment of what started out as a short article for BackBone Magazine, and soon developed (and continues to morph) into something else completely. You can read the first part here: https://garvis.ca/2011/07/07/a-brief-history-of-how-microsoft-and-others-changed-the-world-part-1/ This is the second part of the article, and it starts to get interesting if you…
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Choose Your First Certification Exam Wisely
As I peruse the articles that I have written over the past ten years I occasionally come across one that is interesting or relevant today. I wrote this article when I was working with CertGuard, and it was published in November, 2006. If you are an IT Pro starting down the path to certifications, this…
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A Brief History of how Microsoft (and others) Changed the World… Part 1.
In October of last year I pitched an idea to the editor of Backbone Magazine for an article about how Microsoft changed the world. We were a month shy of the 25th anniversary of Microsoft Windows, and I thought it would be a fitting and timely piece. He asked me to write a short piece…
The World According to Mitch 