The TVNZ Close Up programme ran a piece last week on computer viruses which probably succeeded in scaring most viewers while not offering any solutions or even places to look for help.

Computer virus
How safe is your computer? We all know about fire walls, and anti-virus software. But cyber-criminals are constantly getting smarter, and nastier, they can turn your computer against you if you let your guard down for just a second. To prove this NetSafe, and IBM ran an experiment. They set up four people on poorly protected computers and over two hours monitored the cyber attacks. The guinea pigs did normal things, checked e-mails, visited websites, and downloaded software. And you'll be amazed how quickly they were targeted and in some cases taken down.

Close Up: Computer Virus (4:56)

Now, it's a great thing to illustrate to people that they should be taking steps to protect their computer and themselves online, but putting a bunch of un-patched machines on the web and being amazed at the ensuing viral activity is like leaving the door open when diving in a shark cage - you shouldn't be surprised when you get bitten.

The issue, as the report points out, is "poorly protected computers" and we at Microsoft have a duty to ensure that the public knows how to protect themselves against these kinds of threats, and that they can do it without a huge investment through the free utilities that we and others offer.

There are a few simple steps outlined on security section of the NetSafe website and of course the Microsoft home security site, but it comes down to some basic things:

1. Keep your firewall turned on
2. Keep your operating system up to date
3. Use updated antivirus software
4. Use updated antispyware technology

To this list I'd add two other basic hygiene items:

1. If you're running IE6 upgrade to IE7
2. If you're running Windows XP make sure you've installed Service Pack 3

Last month we launched Bizspark in New Zealand.

Bizspark is a Microsoft worldwide programme that makes software and support available to software start-ups to help them launch their business and be successful earlier.

All the details are available here - but there's four simple rules to qualify. To be eligible for BizSpark, all of the following must be true:

• Is in the business of software development
• Is privately held
• Has been in business for less than 3 years, and
• Has less than $NZD1 million in annual revenue.

The programme works through a group of Network Partners - organisations that are already working with New Zealand start-ups - who are best positioned to get the message out and help our tech companies take advantage of the offering.

It's a very simple and lightweight process to sign up so if you're leading the charge in an NZ start-up I'd encourage you to check it out and see how Bizspark might benefit you.

Full details and the New Zealand perspective on Mike's ISV blog.

To me Live Mesh is one of those solutions that fulfills my personal killer app criteria:

1. I didn't know I needed it before I had it
2. It works beautifully and has changed the way I work/live
3. Now I have it I can't do without it

Moving my life to the cloud was never an option, I don't want to do email, calendaring, file sharing etc. via a browser - I want the cloud integrated into the tools I already use (and in some cases know and love). Mesh allows me to do this - mostly.

In the tech preview available now I can synchronise files between all my devices (phone, work machines, home machines and live desktop) which makes things like managing my documents and photos really, really simple. My files are "just there" no matter which machine I'm using. So far so good.

The great promise of Mesh is as a development platform that others will use so they can write useful apps (that I'll come to know and love) that take advantage of this enormous piece of infrastructure plumbing and allows the developer focus on the cool things I might want to do with my ubiquitous data.

See what Blockbuster is doing in the US, or the BBC with their iPlayer in the UK.

But the real kicker to come is mesh enabled applications, that's an app that you install into your mesh and it becomes available on all devices (well, all relevant devices - no point running that photo editing software on your 200x320 phone for instance).

This will truly be a seamless experience that brings together the best of the web, software and devices - hold on, that sounds suspiciously like the Microsoft Software + Services vision :)

For more info check out the Mesh blog or the new MeshPack blog. As John Burkhardt of MS Startup Labs says:

We’re still learning what we can build with the Live Framework. Our early experiments are very promising. Mesh makes it easy to build applications that are integrated with the connectivity of the Internet but that can break out of the browser to take advantage of native device capabilities. We’ve had a lot of fun so far, but we can’t wait to dig deeper and create compelling products and experiences that Live Mesh can enable. Stay tuned!

Just want to say thank you to everyone who took time out of day to come and share their view of Microsoft and our technologies. We rely a lot on large scale surveys for our take on the health or otherwise of the the NZ developer community, so it was good to be face to face and hear the concerns - and positive comments - of fifty or so developers across the country.

This helps us plan our local programmes and execution to make sure we're hitting the mark and providing value to local communities.

Once again thank you - I really do appreciate your generosity.

At PDC 2008 last week, we announced a new way to program Live Services, the Live Framework (in CTP). Check out the overview of Microsoft’s Live Platform Services.

On the 8th/9th Dec in Sydney we are holding a 2 day Live Services Jumpstart provides in-depth technical training sessions (level 300-400) on Microsoft’s cutting edge consumer web platform technologies that help developers / partner organizations build rich web applications, sync and share them across devices and more importantly, build audience for the web applications.

The Jumpstart event contains several in-depth sessions, hands-on code labs and informal Q&A.

You can learn more about the event at http://lpjumpstart.com

The 2 day agenda is at http://bit.ly/agenda

Capacity is limited to maintain a setting that fosters dialogue among all participants. However, we’re eager to accommodate you if we can, so please register at http://bit.ly/Register and we will contact you shortly to let you know if your registration has been accepted.

If you are accepted into the training there will be no cost associated but T&E will be your responsibility.

The final PDC session has just finished and the event comes to an end.

There's thousands of people heading to the airport - hopefully with their heads full of ideas and schemes that they will take back to their countries and organisations, where they will be the proponents of the PDC message in their communities and workplaces.

There's been an unprecedented avalanche of new technologies, previews, products, frameworks, services etc. foist upon the attendees this year.

So much in fact that some have been claiming it's all too much of a good thing. All I can say is "harden up"! The pace of our industry is relentless so we have to be incredibly adaptive - in the words of the Eagles it's "Everything, all the time"!

An interesting perspective from Dion Almaer of Google on his experience at PDC which reinforces the idea that PDC is an industry event that generates a lot of cross pollination of ideas and experiences across the industry.

For me personally I feel this week has been about us reclaiming our heritage, it feels vital again like it did in the days of the enterprise server push, web services and .NET - a feeling that something is at stake, a constant pushing of the boundaries with innovative products and services that move the industry forward - sometimes when we as IT folks don't even realise we need to move forward.

The excitement and passion of developers writing code for the Microsoft platform has been the single biggest factor in the success of Microsoft. For the company's continued success we must constantly earn that developer commitment and dedication.

I hope this PDC has illustrated our renewed commitment to our developer base.

Thinking about the cloud

So last day at PDC (Thursday) - no big announcements or showcases today. I just went to Gianpaolo Carraro's session on expanding applications to the cloud - a kind of architectural guidance talk which might contextualise cloud computing if you're feeling a little dazed and confused about the whole thing.

He used some real world examples of a voting system, an electricity generation analogy and the video recording of PDC sessions to illustrate the concept of scale/availability vs. control. Recommended to help get your head (and convince others) of the concepts.

Programming the cloud

On Tuesday Don Box and Chris Anderson did a tour de force session, coding on stage in front of 6500 people - no powerpoint, no video, just old fashioned programming. What they illustrated - very well - is that developers already have the skills and knowledge to use Windows Azure. The .NET framework and uniform programming model that you already know is exactly the same in Azure.

So, using only Windows Vista and Visual Studio 2008 they created a local service, showed it working then, with a few minor tweaks to an XML config file, published it to Azure and showed it working. That's a gross simplification of their talk but it really drive home the the concept that with Azure we're extending into the cloud rather than migrating or converting.

Off to a session on the device mesh. Interesting that mesh - which is such a cool technology - is but one small piece of the Windows Azure platform. We've been talking about mesh as a development framework but I think most people saw it purely as a niche file synchronisation app - I imagine the depth of the mesh model is becoming apparent to PDC attendees and viewers.

Wow!

That's all I can say. I've just come out of the Microsoft Research (MSR) keynote given by Rick Rashid at PDC where the attendees were given a tour through some incredible technology innovations. He did a pass through (full details here):

• Highlighting the ability to take massive data feeds and make sense of them, the first presenter ran through some environmental analysis work MS is doing to help reduce power usage in data centres. There were 96 sensors placed around the auditorium where the keynote was being held all feeding temperature and humidity data to a central server. We then saw a model of the heating and cooling of the area over the last few days.
  
  The real world implementation of this is in data centres where this technology is being used to work out how to distribute computing load around the facility to minimise energy used for cooling. Monitoring glacial ice flows in the Swiss Alps was also shown.
  
• World wide telescope (announcing the new version released during the session). Incredible, awe inspiring views of our universe including a dramatic pull back from earth to view the entire, visible universe. Jaw-dropping.
  
• He highlighted some of the work MS has been doing to help combat the HIV virus by applying the techniques of spam detection to virus mutation.
  
• Boku - an intuitive app for kids that has great possibilities to revolutionise how we develop systems. The speaker used an Xbox controller to create worlds, objects and beings the interact with each other through a very simple but powerful, completely graphical programming model - though  "programming model" sounds way too last century, it's difficult to describe!
  
• And the finale was a Star Trek-like look at SecondLight the next generation of Surface devices that use and incredible technique to project through the surface onto other surfaces above. Picture looking at an aerial view of a city then placing a piece plastic (a viewer) above the display and seeing additional information like road names, historical info etc.
  
  And...the device can detect movement and pressure on the "viewer" - so the space above the screen becomes detectable and usable.This really puts into perspective our investments in Surface and multi-touch in Windows 7

An incredible morning - makes me very proud to be part of this company.

It's been a big couple of days here at PDC where we've made some of the biggest announcements in the history of the company. There's plenty of press coverage of the release so I'll give you a high level, personal perspective:

Monday 27th of October saw the delivery of the first installment of the embodiment of the MS software + services strategy. This has been (chief software architect) Ray Ozzie's main focus since joining Microsoft - and he looked very happy to be sharing with developers and the world the vision he's been driving for the last 3 years.

So, Windows in the cloud, Strata, Red Dog, Zurich - now Windows Azure - is now available as a Community Technical Preview (CTP) so developers around the world can begin to familiarise themselves with not only the programming model, but the the new computing model it represents. Here's the conceptual view:

In a nutshell "Windows in the Cloud" but that sounds a little trite - what does it really mean?

If you think of the various computing development and deployment models over the last 40 years services represent the next logical step - ubiquitous and utility-like services that can be consumed without the need to own the infrastructure yourself - much like electricity or telecommunications services. It doesn't make sense to build your own power station or, to better apply the analogy, for an organisation to generate their own energy when others can do it on a far greater scale and provide the service for a known cost - and with no up-front capital investment.

In the future it's difficult to think why an organisation (any or - not just enterprise) would want to host say their own messaging service, unless required to for compliance reasons. It will make far more sense to "rent" the capability.

Now, this sounds like I'm suggesting existing pure web-based mail systems like gmail, but bear with me...at Microsoft we believe in the power of software combined with services so customers will have a choice of where they host their messaging (and other) infrastructure, on premise or in the cloud.

But here's the thing...

With S+S it's a two way street. You can move your messaging to the cloud, but you can also move it back again, or host various components in places that make sense to you.

And all with a uniform programming and management model that your people already know.

More to come on Windows Azure, Windows 7, the next version of Office - from PDC2008...

Love these online bling badges...

So we've arrived in LA. Just checked the PDC website there's been some updates and changes. The good news you'll be able to watch the keynotes live - bad news is they're on about 4.30am NZ time.

Spotted a few likely looking attendees around the immediate vicinity - not sure what it is but geeks tend to standout amongst normal civilians.

After running TechEd this year I kinda feel for the people who will working manically over the weekend to make sure everything comes together for Monday morning. At least we didn't have a raft of senior execs to add to the pressure!

Will keep you posted.

Just in from Darryl's blog:

While the rest of the world has been able to purchase and renew Visual Studio and MSDN online for some time, we have for some reason lagged behind.  But now that lag is behind us and we can now order a new subscription or renew your MSDN subscription online.

If you are a small business, this is good news as you don't need to go through a LAR to purchase Visual Studio - all you need is a credit card and an Internet connection (and a Live ID).

To purchase MSDN/Visual Studio, click here and follow the "wizard" (for want of something better to call it).  The pricing on the online store represents about a 10% discount on the standard price, so its not a bad way to purchase.

Man - I'm starting to get excited. The Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC) starts on Monday in LA and Mike Zeff and I are attending to host NZ press and partners.

The announcements that will be made next week have been guarded pretty closely, even internally, but over the last few weeks I've been lucky enough to take a look behind the scenes and see some of the detail.

My view, our software + services strategy will become "real" for many people - and they'll be blown away! I also think many we'll start to see a growing realisation of the distinction between the SaaS and S+S models.

I'm thinking up a cool graphic to illustrate the model (unless Ray Ozzie can help me out :)).

I've worked at Microsoft for more than 12 years - through NT, client/server, n-tier, COM, MTS, the browser wars, .NET, Web Services, Longhorn...but I think next week is going to be the start something very special.

Invitation for The Microsoft New Zealand Developers Focus Groups 2008

We want to hear from you. Tell us what you love and hate about Microsoft! Every year we use your feedback to improve our products and services. This year, in addition to the annual online survey, we are planning to hold focus groups around the country and are looking for NZ developers to have their say.

As part of getting to understand the pulse out there in developer-land I will be facilitating these sessions around the country. My role is to listen and understand your feedback which will enable my team to provide better support and resources for NZ developers.

If you would like to participate, please email your interest to nzeditor@microsoft.com with your contact details and preferred focus group (by session number as listed below) you would like to attend. We will confirm you attendance shortly after via email and phone. You can be assured that all information shared will be kept confidential.

Christchurch Convention Centre / Tuesday 11^th November 2008

Kilmore Street, Christchurch

Session 1: 8:30 -10:00
Session 2: 11:00 -12:30

[update: Akld and Wgtn details were transposed previously]

Microsoft New Zealand Wellington Office / Thursday 13^th November 2008

Level 12, Vodafone on the Park, Lambton Quay, Wellington 

Session 3: 8:30 -10:00
Session 4: 11:00 -12:30

Microsoft New Zealand Auckland Office / Wednesday 19^th November 2008

Level 5, 22 Viaduct Harbour Avenue, Auckland

Session 5: 8:30 -10:00
Session 6: 11:00 -12:30

Refreshments and a token of our appreciation will be provided for your participation.  We look forward to hearing from those of you who are interested to participate in the focus groups. Please note that there are limited spaces available so please respond early to secure your space for the focus group.

The Microsoft Professional Developers Conference (PDC) is coming soon. We pretty much only run PDC when we have some big things to talk about...real big things. People talk about the ".NET" PDC and the "Longhorn" PDC and this year will be no different.

I think it will go down as the "software + services" PDC where Microsoft joined the dots on the various strands of our strategy.

Hear about the event from Mike Swanson who owns the content streams for the whole shebang right here. Get details on the Windows 7 sessions and much more at Channel9.

So...you might think the giant has been sleeping over the last couple of years but in fact we've been ultra busy building the future. I'd encourage to you attend the event if you can, bug someone who went or view the post conference materials - by whatever means don't miss out.

From my post a couple of months ago...

Microsoft offers choice across the platform while our competitors are about locking customers in. Choice in device type, choice in hardware manufacturer, choice in hosted or on-premise deployment or combination, choice to work direct or through partner...no one has the breadth of offerings we do from the device to the data centre, consumer to enterprise.

All with a uniform programing model and a consistent partnering and commercial model.

There is a feeling in the industry that Microsoft has lost ground against our competitors and there was some acknowledgment that we've been taking a few punches recently without coming out and fighting back.

That's about to change.

We're hiring...

You might have heard that Darryl Burling has moved on to a new role within Microsoft NZ - and he's left some big shoes to fill. The Developer Evangelist role requires a very special combination of abilities - deep development skills is the obvious starting place, add to that an intimate knowledge of NZ developer communities, excellent presentation skills, and the ability to think and execute strategically.

The Developer Evangelist is essentially a technical role with the mission of engaging with the broad community of developers within New Zealand. The goal is to drive excitement around developer related technologies:

• Developer Tools
  • Visual Studio .NET
  • Visual Studio Team System
  • Expression Tools (Interactive Designer, Graphic Designer, Web Designer)
  • Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), Silverlight
  • SQL Server
• Developer Frameworks
  • ASP .NET
  • Windows Forms
  • Office 2007
• .NET Framework and Languages
  • C# and Visual Basic .NET
• Windows Live Services
  • Live Local
  • Live Search

You'd be working as part of a team of evangelists who cover other communities such as Architects, IT Pro's, Web developers & designers, ISV's and Students/academia.

For more info take a look at our online advertisements - either Wellington or Auckland