I think Windows PowerShell is one of the greatest things to have been released recently (yes, I am a poshoholic).

At TechEd 2007 last June in Orlando, a lot of people were talking about PowerShell.  Ben Pearce put together a list of the top 5 questions he was asked while doing demos.  I will leave it up to you to check out the questions, which have pretty detailed answers. I am going to start blogging on TLA about Windows PowerShell, and how it can make *your* world a lazier better place.  I am hoping that, along the way, I can help you understand and appreciate the POWER of PowerShell, and help you automate your environment or even just help with your regular daily stuff.  At any time, please post in the scripting forum, if you have any questions or comments on PowerShell.  You can even post your own scripts in other languages, and ask “how do I do this in PowerShell?”.  I will help you find the answers…

I want you to be as excited as I am about this new technology.

Exchange 2007 was basically *built on* PowerShell, and as of Windows Server 2008 beta 3, it can be easily added to the OS.  Come circa 2009, expect PowerShell to be in all Microsoft server products.  Why not start to learn it *now*?

Feel free to visit my personal blog (http://marcoshaw.blogspot.com) where I post more general stuff all related to Windows PowerShell.

As you are all aware one of the key changes that was introduced with Windows Vista is the use of User account Controls. These controls segment the user access token, and then manage access to local resources based on the standard user portion of the token. When elevated access is necessary User account control kicks in and we get one of a couple of different behaviors. We might get prompted for a password, we might get an administrative approval request. We might see nothing at all.

This feature will be included in Windows Server 2008. It is a great local security tool and rightly deserves to be included in the server family.

There are some recurring questions that I notice with regards to UAC.

Q: How do I turn off UAC?
A: It can be done; however, I would not recommend it. The base security that UAC provides far outweighs its annoying pop ups. In most cases what we really want to do is get rid of the pop ups. To get rid of the pop ups you can change their default behavior.

Q: How do I control the default behavior of the UAC prompts?
A; Watch this 10 minute video segment and I will show you where to go to change the behavior of the pop ups and some other basic stuff about UAC.

News Source: blogs.technet.com

PlayTV has two high definition tuners allowing you to watch one channel while recording another all in 1080p. It uses the European Digital Video Broadcasting – Terrestrial (DVB-T) format meaning a US release isn’t possible in this configuration. You can store shows on your PS3 or transcode and transfer them to your PSP for viewing on the go and, speaking of PSP, you can use the handheld’s Remote Play feature to program or watch your PlayTV while away from home. They promise the interface and guide will of course be beautiful and lightning fast, but until we can try it out for ourselves you’ll just have to take their word for it.

Just in case it’s not the be all and end all of set-top boxes, Sony says, “PlayTV will evolve with time, with great added value functionality being updated via PlayStation Network; a feature that sets it above all other set top boxes. PlayTV will never be out of date.” … At least not for Europeans. PlayTV will hit Europe “early in 2008″ with other PAL territories to follow.

News Source: www.joystiq.com

Further investigation by our WGA team has brought to light more information on the WGA validation issue affecting users this past weekend. Alex Kochis on the WGA blog breaks down the events of the weekend that caused the validation failure, how it was Read More……(read more)

Further investigation by our WGA team has brought to light more information on the WGA validation issue affecting users this past weekend.  Alex Kochis on the WGA blog breaks down the events of the weekend that caused the validation failure, how it was identified and what was done to fix it, and changes we’ve made to WGA as a result.  The upshot is that we’re working to improve WGA, having learned much from this failure, and the team, with Alex in the lead, is taking the matter and its impact very seriously.< ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Among the points that Alex calls out, one is that around 12,000 customers were affected worldwide.  While I stated on Saturday that “very few customers” were affected — a poor choice of words, I will be the first to admit –, this by no means was meant to downplay the experience endured by those customers.  As Alex puts it, “one bad customer experience is one too many,” and I completely agree.  That’s the most important point and cannot be overstated.  My apologies to anyone who felt slighted by interpreting that MS’ stance was less than responsive and empathetic; I can assure you that the team worked non-stop to restore service to affected Genuine users.

I’ll not go into the details of the issue here but instead leave you to review them on Alex’s blog.  Also, Alex has invited those with questions to address them to him via his blog.