Memorial Day

Remembering men and women in uniform from around the world.

The above image is a resized version of an original image by Daniel Wood ©2004.

Daniel Wood's complete photo essay entitled "Fallen Heroes" is no longer available.

Reference: U.S. Memorial Day History

Remember - "A day without laughter is a day wasted."
May the wind sing to you and the sun rise in your heart...

Read More

Essential Windows Live

How often do you think about the programs you use every day? How many times do you automatically launch the desired application without thinking about it? That has certainly become the case for most people who use Windows Live Essentials programs.

When the Microsoft Clubhouse manager posed the Challenge, What Windows Live product can you not live without? I thought about all the Windows Live products I have installed on my computers and wondered which one I could give up for a day.

Although I have had fun with Movie Maker, I knew I could survive a while without it. I could certainly use another mechanism as a substitute for Writer to create blog posts. I know I would be hard-pressed to not have access to Photo Gallery. However, the answer came quickly when I thought about sacrificing Windows Live Mail for a day.

Windows Live Mail provides the capability of including multiple accounts in one program. The junk filters in place now are extremely good. I very seldom receive any spam in my In Box. The incorporated calendar has become essential for tracking not only appointments but also works exceptionally well for adding reminders of tasks I can put off but do not want to forget to handle.

With Windows Live Mail you can connect to all your email accounts and manage them in one place. You can still use Windows Live Mail to check Gmail and other webmail services even if you do not have a Hotmail account. (Note: Yahoo! requires a Plus account.) Another useful feature is that it is even possible to reply to mail sent to one account from another one, You can also drag messages from one account to another.

Sharing pictures with family and friends is a snap with Windows Live Mail. Instead of attaching pictures to a regular e-mail, select New > Photo e-mail (Ctrl+Shift+P). The photos are uploaded to SkyDrive and thumbnails are incorporated in the e-mail. When the recipient clicks on the thumbnail, they are taken to a web photo viewer. From there, they can view the images in a slide show, comment and download some or all of the pictures.

To learn more follow the Windows Live Messenger and Mail team at The Windows Blog, Inside Windows Live.

Windows Live Download Links:

• Messenger
• Mail
• Writer
• Photo Gallery
• Movie Maker
• Family Safety
• Toolbar

Clubhouse Tags: Clubhouse, challenge-experiment, Windows Live Essentials, Mail, Messenger, Writer, Photo Gallery, Movie Maker, Family Safety, Toolbar, Microsoft, Story

Remember - "A day without laughter is a day wasted."
May the wind sing to you and the sun rise in your heart...

Read More

Launch Day: Microsoft Office and Sharepoint 2010

The focal point of the launch today is the worldwide availability for business customers of Microsoft Office 2010 and Microsoft SharePoint 2010. Also included in the launch event are Microsoft Visio 2010 and Microsoft Project 2010.

The products launched today are currently available in 14 languages. Over the next few months, Office 2010 and the related products will eventually be available in 94 languages. From the Press Release:

"Microsoft’s global launch website http://www.the2010event.com for the 2010 suite of products was built on Microsoft SharePoint 2010, reaching more than 60 countries and 26 languages worldwide. The site includes a rich set of content that will help customers choose and benefit from the 2010 products, which are available for business purchase now."

If you missed the launch, you can view the Keynote at Microsoft Office and SharePoint Launch Event.

Whatever Office products you use most frequently, up-to-date information is readily available at the the Microsoft Team Blog resources reproduced below. In addition, help for consumers is available at Microsoft Answers in the Microsoft Office Forums.


Microsoft Team Blog Resources

Office
	The Office Blog	RSS
Office Applications
	Deployment Support	RSS	Support Blog
	Office 2010	RSS
	Office Access	RSS
	Office Excel and Excel Services	RSS
	Office for Mac	RSS
	Office InfoPath	RSS
	Office Outlook	RSS
	Office Natural Language	RSS
	Office Powerpoint	RSS
	Office Project	RSS
	Office Project Support	RSS	Support Blog
	Office Resource Kit	RSS
	Office Sustained Engineering	RSS
	Office Visio	RSS
	Office Word	RSS
Office Sharepoint MOSS and Groove
	Groove Support	RSS	Support Blog
	Performance Point Server	RSS
	SharePoint Designer	RSS
	SharePoint Developer	RSS
	SharePoint End User Content Team	RSS
	SharePoint IT Pro Documentation	RSS
	SharePoint Products and Technologies	RSS

References:

• Keynote: Microsoft Office and SharePoint Launch Event
• Office 2010 Engineering: What’s up with the Business Launch? A conversation with the engineering leader behind Office
• Press Pass: Microsoft Delivers the Future of Productivity With Office 2010 and SharePoint 2010: New products and cloud services available to businesses today.

Clubhouse Tags: Clubhouse, Microsoft, Office, Announcement, Information, Sharepoint

, Visio, Project

Remember - "A day without laughter is a day wasted."
May the wind sing to you and the sun rise in your heart...

Read More

May 2010 Security Bulletin Release

Two (2) new Microsoft security bulletins have been released, both identified as Critical, and described as follows.

Security Bulletin MS10-030

• Bulletin Title: Vulnerability in Outlook Express and Windows Mail Could Allow Remote Code Execution (978542)
• Maximum Severity Rating: Critical
• Vulnerability Impact: Remote Code Execution
• Restart Requirement: Requires Restart
• Affected Software: Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2.

Security Bulletin MS10-031

• Bulletin Title: Vulnerability in Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications Could Allow Remote Code Execution (978213)
• Maximum Severity Rating: Critical
• Vulnerability Impact: Remote Code Execution
• Restart Requirement: May Require Restart
• Affected Software: Microsoft Office XP, Office 2003, 2007 Office System, and Visual Basic for Applications SDK.

The following additional items of Note are included in the MSRC blog post by Jerry Bryant, Group Manager, Response Communications:

"Security Advisory 983438 is available and includes workarounds for customers regarding a cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability in SharePoint Server. We are not aware of any active attacks at this time and we will continue to monitor the threat landscape and post an updated security advisory should it be needed.

Microsoft is also asking that customers on platforms nearing end-of-support update to the latest supported service packs or to the latest operating systems in order to continue receiving security updates.

• Windows XP Service Pack 2 will no longer be supported after July 13, 2010. Many customers are still on this version, and are encouraged to upgrade to Service Pack 3 or to Windows 7 as soon as possible.
• Extended support for Windows 2000 will also be retired as of July 13, 2010. After that time, Microsoft will no longer provide security or any other updates for Windows 2000."
  

References:

• MSRC: May 2010 Security Bulletin Release
• TechNet: Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for May 2010

Clubhouse Tags: Clubhouse, Microsoft, Windows, Security, Updates, Vulnerabilities, Information,

Remember - "A day without laughter is a day wasted."
May the wind sing to you and the sun rise in your heart...

Read More

May 2010 Bulletin Release Advance Notification

On May 11, 2010 Microsoft is planning to release two (2) new security bulletins, both identified as Critical.

The full version of the Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification for this month can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms10-may.mspx.

==================================
NEW BULLETIN SUMMARY
==================================
Bulletin ID: Bulletin 1
Maximum Severity Rating: Critical
Vulnerability Impact: Remote Code Execution
Restart Requirement: Requires restart
Affected Software: Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2008 R2.
----------------------------------
Bulletin ID: Bulletin 2
Maximum Severity Rating: Critical
Vulnerability Impact: Remote Code Execution
Restart Requirement: May require restart
Affected Software: Microsoft Office XP, Office 2003, 2007 Office System, and Visual Basic for Applications.

References:

• MSRC Blog: May 2010 Bulletin Release Advance Notification
• TechNet: Microsoft Security Bulletin Advance Notification for May 2010

Clubhouse Tags: Clubhouse, Microsoft, Windows, Security, Updates, Vulnerabilities, Information,

Remember - "A day without laughter is a day wasted."
May the wind sing to you and the sun rise in your heart...

Read More