More on the $199 iPhone

$199 iPhone is cool, but possibly imaginary. MacWorld weighs in.

Hope for XP extension?

Ballmer offers glimmer of hope for XP extension but, "Later on Thursday, however, a U.S.-based spokeswoman for the company said that Microsoft's plans remain 'unchanged.'"

I think there is a lot of wishful thinking going on from consumers. If MS does give an extension, they won't announce it until the last minute.

$199 iPhones?

Fortune reports AT&T plans to reduce the cost by chipping in $200.00 on each iPhone sold.

When the 3G iPhone is introduced this summer, AT&T, the exclusive U.S. iPhone sales partner with Apple, will cut the price by as much as $200, according to a person familiar with the strategy.

AT&T is preparing to subsidize $200 of the cost of a new iPhone, bringing the price down to $199 for customers who sign two-year contracts, the source says. Apple is expected to have two versions of the new iPhone, an 8-gigabyte-memory and a 16-gigabyte-memory model with price tags widely expected to be $399 and $499.

AT&T and Apple declined to comment.

It would be nice, but AT&T is already losing money on the iPhone. I guess we will find out in June.

Your help desk career: Dead end or launching pad?

Help Desk: Dead end or launching pad?

In my opinion every admin should have experience working with end users.

Because Tuesday is Black Tuesday

Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification for March 2008

US Daylight Savings Time starts this weekend

Just a reminder this is the weekend that Daylight Savings Time starts in the US at 02:00 local time Sunday morning. This is the time change where we set our clocks one hour ahead, and we lose an hour.

On August 8, 2005, President George W. Bush signed the Energy Policy Act of 2005. This Act changed the time change dates for Daylight Saving Time in the U.S. Beginning in 2007, DST will begin on the second Sunday in March and end the first Sunday in November. Under the old system DST would have started this weekend. Next week we gain an additional week of DST under Energy Policy Act of 2005.

Microsoft and other software vendors recommend you pay close attention to your calendar doing this extending DST period. Problems with other nonrecurring events might still happen.

iPhone Enterprise Features Comming in June

The new features include:

- Push email
- Push calendar
- Push contacts
- Global address list
- Certificates and Identities
- WPA2 / 802.1x
- Enforced security policies
- Device configuration
- Remote wipe
- Active Sync and Microsoft Exchange support

There is a beta program, but you must apply and meet the requirements.

“iPhone Software Roadmap” Event March 6th

Date Apple has set March 6th for the “iPhone Software Roadmap” event. Along with a peek at the iPhone SDK, Apple promises “new enterprise features”.

I hope they announce full Microsoft Exchange support. Many attorneys I talk to say they would dump their Blackberrys for iPhones, if the iPhone has email push and would sync with their Exchange calendars and contacts.

Windows Server 2008

Windows Server 2008 was officially launched today.

Whether IT admins follow along with Microsoft's reasoning is, of course, another matter. But Server 2008 certainly contains desirable features in its own right. Server Core is a new installation option that enables Windows Server 2008 to be deployed in a cut-down mode to serve one of eight specific server roles: file, print, DNS, DHCP, Active Directory, LDAP, virtualization, and web (IIS); there is also a ninth streaming media server role that is an optional download.

Server Core mode omits much of the GUI and interactive parts of the OS, as well as those services not essential to the chosen role. Management of Server Core systems will be remote, typically through MMC. In this first version of the functionality, some of those roles may be a little too cut-down; the web server mode lacks .NET (and hence ASP.NET), and since ASP.NET is one of IIS's major features, its omission may prove a little hard to stomach. The other options are more appealing, and they should be very welcome for administrators looking to streamline resource usage and cut down attack surface area.

Hyper-V, the new virtualization platform, isn't actually finished yet; it's still in beta, with a final release expected within 180 days. It's also an optional feature; you can save about $28 from the license fee by opting to eschew it, and it'll be available to purchase—for about $28—if you wish to add it to a non-Hyper-V version later on. Hyper-V uses the virtualization features on Intel and AMD processors (64-bit only) to, in principle, provide high-performance reliable virtualization.

The version of Windows 2008 server I played with looks very promising.

What's the deal RIM?

While the Great Blackberry Outage of 2008^TM is over, most people are left to wonder what the problem is at RIM. Bloomberg reports:

"Research In Motion Ltd. said that a disruption in its Blackberry e-mail service in North America was ``fully and quickly'' restored and no messages were lost.

``It was pretty focused and isolated and we recovered well,'' Co-Chief Executive Officer James Balsillie said in an interview at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today. ``We apologize for any inconvenience.''

My first question is where are these emails that news outlet keep taking about. I've never gotten one, and my firm is a BES customer.

My second question is how much can we trust RIM to provide key services when we have seen outages time after time. I just glad that my iPhone can do IMAP to my firm's Exchange server.

Microsoft is set to push IE 7 out via WSUS on Tuesday

From a technet update email

Volume 10, Issue 3: February 6, 2008

"On February 12, 2008 Microsoft will release the Windows Internet Explorer 7 Installation and Availability update to Windows Server Update Services (WSUS). Windows Internet Explorer 7 Installation and Availability Update is a complete installation package that will upgrade machines running Internet Explorer 6 to Windows Internet Explorer 7. Customers who have configured WSUS to "auto-approve" Update Rollup packages will automatically upgrade machines running Internet Explorer 6 to Windows Internet Explorer 7 after February 12, 2008 and consequently, may want to read Knowledge Base article 946202 to manage how and when this update is installed. For more on the Windows Internet Explorer 7 Installation and Availability Update, read Knowledge Base article 940767."