Virtual PC on Windows 7

6 01 2010

For Windows 7 users, you may download the new version of Virtual PC – Windows Virtual PC.

Remember to go to BIOS to enable the hardware virtualization. (See the full system requirement from here.)

There are a lot of new features that provided by Windows Virtual PC:

1. Integration with XP mode
2. US Support
3. Integration with Windows Explorer
4. Known folder integration between host and client…and so on.

After you installed the Windows Virtual PC, launch it and you will notice there is a new user interface for the Virtual PC console.

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Creating a Virtual Machine

1. To create a new virtual machine, click “Create virtual machine” on the top menu bar.

2. Enter the name and the location where you want to store the virtual machine.
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3. Specify the memory and networking options.
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4. Specify the virtual hard disk or you can use the existing virtual hard disk that you created earlier. you can select “Enable Undo Disks”. Undo Disks is a feature that saves changes to a virtual machine in a separate undo disk file in case you want to reverse the changes. The Undo Disks setting applies to all virtual hard disks attached to the virtual machine
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5. Create “Create” to proceed the creation of new virtual machine.

6. If you want to modify any changes on the virtual machine, select the virtual machine you want to modify the settings, then click “Settings” from the top menu bar. Click “OK” to save all the changes.
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Tips:
1. If you created a virtual hard disk with “Undo Disk enabled”, remember to commit the changes to the virtual hard disk if you would like to have the changes saved to your virtual hard disk. Go to the virtual machine’s settings –> select “Hard Disk 1” (depends which virtual hard disk you are using) –> select “Apply Changes”. If you don’t want the changed saved to the virtual hard disk, then click “Discard changes”, whatever changes you made will be deleted.

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Use Threat Modeling Tool and Team Foundation Server together

29 09 2009

From my previous post, I mentioned about using the SDL Threat Modeling Tool v3 to identify and mitigate potential security issues early.

You can actually setup the Threat Modeling Tool to use Team Foundation Server as bug tracking system. Here is the instructions:

1. Launch Threat Modeling Tool.
2. Go to Actions, select "Show Bug Tracking Settings"image

3. At the "Bug Tracking Settings", enter the uri that point to your Team Foundation Server. ex: http://tfsrtm08:8080
4. For the Product setting, enter the team project name. ex: AWC-Online.
5. For the Issue type setting, enter the work item type. ex: Bug
[ you can also your your own template to add in more values, ex: Priority, Traige]image
6. Once you have done, click "OK" to exit the setting dialog.
7. Now you can go ahead to add a bug from your Threat Modeling Tool.
8. Enter the description for the threat, then click "Add Bug". A bug workitem will be created and published to Team Foundation Server.image
9. When you go to Team Explorer and bring out all the Active Bugs, you will notice the bug you created is appeared here.image





Threat Modeling in Application Development Process

29 09 2009

Microsoft Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) is the software security assurance process that introduces security and privacy early and throughout the development process.

SDL Threat Modeling Tool v3 is the core element in the SDL, as it allows software architects to identify and mitigate potential security issues early, when they are relatively easy and cost-effective to resolve.

You can download the SDL Threat Modeling Tool v3, it is still in beta version.
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You may find the demo and tutorial on the tools from here.

To learn more about the SDL Process Guidance, please read this: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/84aed186-1d75-4366-8e61-8d258746bopq.aspx

For more information about the SDL, please visit http://www.microsoft.com/sdl





T-SQL Static Code Analysis for Database project

29 09 2009

Some of you might not aware that, currently the Visual Studio Development Edition has been merged with Visual Studio Database Edition (see my previous post).
If you are having the Visual Studio Database Edition, you can now do T-SQL static code analysis for your database project. Just download the Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition Power tools from here:http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=73ba5038-8e37-4c8e-812b-db14ede2c354&displaylang=en

Once you installed the power tools, in your project’s properties windows, you will see the extra “Static Analysis” tab. There are couples of rules that shipped in this tool, including design, naming and performance rules.image

Besides the Static Code Analysis, there are some new features that shipped in this release updates. The new features include two custom unit test conditions, a new Data Generation Wizard, and new MSBuild tasks to support running TSQL Static Code Analysis from the command line. The updated features include 5 refactoring types, a dependency viewer, additional data generators and editors, 2 MSBuild tasks for Schema and Data Compare and the TSQL Static Code Analysis feature
New Test Conditions for Database Unit Tests





Simply Blogging with Windows Live Writer ©

28 09 2009

As the Internet has become more social nowadays, blogs have gained in popularity. Today, there are over 100 million blogs with more entering the blogosphere every day. In fact, blogging has become an important part of the online and offline worlds with popular bloggers impacting the worlds of politics, business and society with their words. There are so many blog services available and free for anyone to get started as a blogger. Writing blog should be a fun way to stretch your mind and stay connected to trends and friends, but not another computer task that takes long time to get it done.

Getting a right blogging tool, can ease you to tweak your markup and make everything look right before publishing the blog post to your blog site. There are a number of good blogging tools, but choosing among them can be confusing. In this article, I am introducing you a blogging tool that can assist you in composing and manage your blog posts – Windows Live Writer.

Compatible with Various Blog Service

Windows Live Writer is a desktop application that makes it easier to compose compelling blog posts using your current blog service.  Live Writer makes it easy to share your photos and videos on almost any blog service—Windows Live, WordPress, Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, and many more.

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What You See is What You Get (WYSIWYG) authoring

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Windows Live Writer© enables true WYSIWYG blog authoring. You can now author your post and know exactly what it will look like before you publish it. Writer knows the styles of your blog such as headings, fonts, colors, background images, paragraph spacing, margins and block quotes and enables you to edit your post using these styles.  Writer also includes other views including HTML source-code editing and web preview mode. With this feature, you don’t have to waste time going through the process of publishing, refreshing, previewing, and tweaking your post to get it looking the way you want.

Photo Publishing

Most of bloggers like to attach photos on the blog post to make it more interesting. With Live Writer©, It’s fast and simple to make your photos look great on your blog. Once you’ve inserted the picture, Writer provides contextual editing tools to modify size, text wrapping, borders, and apply graphic effects. You can even pull your photos together into an album—just select the style you want and Live Writer© will take care of the rest. What more cool is Writer automatically saves your picture or album online and links them to your blog when you publish it. This feature avoids the hassle to look for site to host your photos.

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Videos on blog

Photos are just not enough sometimes, how about attach video to make your blog more lively? Writer can help you publish videos to Soapbox on MSN Video, or to YouTube, and embed them in your blog. And just like photos, it’s easy to align, resize, and caption your videos, so they look just the way you want them to.
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There are more other features on Windows Live Writer©, which makse blogging more handy.

As long as your computer is running Windows XP Service Pack (SP)2 and above, you can start to explore the wonderful blogging tool by downloading and installing it on your computer. To download the Windows Live Writer, go to this website: http://download.live.com/





self-destruct your own data with Vanish!!

15 08 2009

Nowadays, with the awesome infrastructure of internet, social networking tools, blogging services…people left their personal information accidently or without knowing it. This comes to the point of the privacy on the information. If you think that by clicking "delete" button will make your data go away on the web, then you are too naive…
Here comes the cool technology  – Vanish. University of Washington researchers has built a prototype to make online information expire. You can set the time frame for the electronic communications such as e-mail, Facebook posts and chat messages to automatically self-destruct.

For more information on this Vanish technology, visit this site.





Windows 7 RTM Available to all MSDN Subscribers on August 6

5 08 2009

On August 6th [Pacific time] the first public release of Windows 7 will be to MSDN Subscribers, which is over two months ahead of the general availability date of October 22nd for retail and OEM customers. To support the variety of languages and builds, 893 different images are being released to MSDN Subscriber Downloads in three waves through August 21st.

There is NO supported upgrade path from either Windows 7 Beta or RC – to Windows 7 RTM. For more information, see Windows 7 Upgrade Paths.

Some useful links:

Installing Win7 using a USB Stick – TechNet Edge video from Dennis Chung





The next generation of Mobile user experience

4 08 2009

The technology in mobile’s world has been evolved tremendously for the past decade, and the amount of applications or activities that you can do on you mobile device has evolved as well. For device input, aside the basic input methods like keypads, stylus; the technology has been popularized with next-generation input methods, such as touch screens, light or movement sensors. Recently, Microsoft has revealed new Windows® phone. The next generation of Windows® phones will be based on Windows Mobile 6.5 – the new mobile operating system, which feature on touch-friendliness and delivers richer User Experience. Windows® phone also features two new services: My Phone-sync text messages, contacts and more to the web; Windows® Marketplace for Mobile- provide direct-to-phone mobile applications.
image For those old time users of Windows Mobile devices, you might always have the trouble to unlock the device then only able to view any new notifications. Now, with Windows Mobile 6.5’s new lock screen, you will be able to view the notifications on the unlock screen itself. With that, you can keep the mobile device locked and view whether you have missed calls, new emails, voicemail or new SMS. When you want to view the new notification, you just need to slide the respective indicator over to the left. This will unlock the device and will bring you to the respective screen on the device. The lock screen hides all the Today plug-ins and only Unlock slide button at the top and a clock at the bottom. This design is to allow you to get more done with lesser taps or button pressed when you are using your mobile device.

Getting bored on the traditional grid layout or feeling uneasy to click on the icon that you want with your fingers on the menu selection? The new Windows Mobile 6.5 home screen has been revamped and touch-optimized user interface. It comes with the hexagonally partitioned home screen that presents various icons or widgets in a honeycomb-like matrix. The honeycomb-style main menu allows users easier to navigate the menus. Many user interface elements have been enlarged and you can select them with your finger easily. You can always get the up-to-date important information such as new emails, texts or calendar appointments from the home screen. One thing cool about this honeycomb menu, is you can move and rearrange icons on the menu based on your preferences. This redesigned menus that don’t need a stylus to actuate; fingerable home and contacts screens, and more. The Start menu with the standard drop down list has been removed. In Windows Mobile 6.5, when you press on the Start button, you will get a hexagonal launcher transparent menu right on top of the main screen.
image Nowadays, people carry mobile devices everywhere they go. For those has data plan, browsing internet with mobile devices are pretty common. If you are one of those, you will be amazed with the new version of Internet Explorer Mobile in Windows Mobile 6.5. You will be given a more desktop-like experience and all menus are now finger-friendly. The new version of Internet Explorer has the revamped navigation controls, more touch-optimized browsing experience, full HTML rendering and support for Flash. A thoroughly-restyled cut of Internet Explorer Mobile features a touchable good zoom slide at the right side and auto full screen view of web pages. You will also find a progress bar at the URL navigation bar. Besides that, the few round buttons on it give you quick functions such as back, favorites, menu and so on.
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For those who experienced mobile device damage or lost, phone information perhaps is the most valuable thing that you can’t afford to lose it. Here is the solution: Microsoft My Phone , a cool backup service by Microsoft, which allows users to backup and restore phone information up to 200MB of data. Those who own Windows Mobile 6.X version mobile devices will be able to synchronize contacts, calendar appointments, text messages and other information stored in the devices to a website. In order to benefit from this new Microsoft service, you just need to download and install the My Phone client on the mobile devices, then synchronize it with the cloud. For more information, visit this site : http://myphone.microsoft.com
image Currently, there is no a fixed date yet on the release of the Windows® Phone. The new Windows® phones are expected to be available in the second half of 2009. However, you might be seeing some phone manufacturers, like LG, HTC and so on, has started revealing some of the first Windows® phones showcasing the new operating system. Let’s wait patiently for the existing mobile devices to be released to the market.





Run Andriod on your desktop?!

15 07 2009

You can now try the Google Andriod on your desktop without getting a T-Mobile G1. You just need to download the image of the Google Android operating system, burn it on a disc, then you can boot it from the disc. That’s really cool!!.You can now try the Andriod, without installing on your PC.
You can download the live Andriod from here.

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Remove Malicious Software with Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool

15 07 2009

Microsoft released the Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool to help remove specific prevalent malicious software from computers that are running Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows XP, or Windows 2000. After you download the Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool, it runs one time to check your computer for inflection by specific prevalent malicious software (including Blaster, Sasser, and Mydoom) and helps remove any infection it finds. Microsoft releases a new version of the tool every month.

You can download the tool from here.

For more information , see knowledge base article KB890830

For Microsoft Security Bulletin Summary for July 2009, go to this site.