Maximum PC SQL Server RSS Feed

Microsoft Lures in Web Designers with Free Expression Design Tools

Ryan Whitwam — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 20:33:11 -0500

If you happen to be a web designer, Microsoft would like to have a quick word with you. Just don’t drop any more money on Adobe products until you’ve heard them out. Microsoft’s Expression design tools haven’t enjoyed wide scale adoption in the face of Adobe, but they’re out to change that. As part of Microsoft’s “Spark” program, they will be giving away several thousand dollars worth of software to any small design firms interested.

Web design shops with up to 10 employees are eligible, and all they have to do is pay a $100 administrative fee. The so-called “WebSpark” giveaway includes multiple licenses of Expression, Visual Studio 2008, Web Server 2008 and SQL Server. The software licenses are good for three years and include full support. Not bad for $100.

Microsoft expects 15,000 to 20,000 companies to get in on the deal. Clearly, this program is meant to get small firms into the Microsoft ecosystem early. While their intentions may not be entirely pure, it’s hard to refuse the offer of free software.

Australian Federal Police Mock Hackers – Then Get Hacked

Justin Kerr — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 20:06:44 -0500

Making a high profile hacker arrest is respectable accomplishment, but bragging about it to his friends on the community forums is clearly a bad idea. I’m sure you didn’t need to be told this, but apparently it’s a lesson the Australian Police Department had to learn the hard way. In a recently televised take down broadcast on ABC’s Four Corners, Australian investigators raided, and sized computer equipment belonging to the administrator of an underground hacking forum located at r00t.y0u.org. Following the arrest, interrogators were able to obtain passwords, and began using the site as a honey pot to try and expose other potential suspects.

Unfortunately for Police word of the arrest leaked out quickly, and it didn’t take long for the community to discover something was up. Matters were further complicated when the police agency began taunting the forums visitors by saying “all member IP addresses have been logged, and arrests are being made”. Enraged by the comments, members of the hacker community broke into the system police were using during the investigation and supposedly gained access to intelligence contained within the federal police mainframe.

The hacker posted his own retort to the Australian police on pastebin.com mocking them for busting a couple of “script kiddies” and posted pictures of fake IDs and stolen credit card numbers lifted from police servers. The hacker continued by claiming “I couldn’t stop laughing on seeing that the federal police server was running Windows”. Apparently the MYSQL password was also left blank (opps!). Apparently this 30 minute long hack could have been faster if he “didn’t stop to laugh so much”.

Police claim the files were intentionally planted on the compromised system. Anyone buy that?

Microsoft Looks for Blue Skies Ahead with its Azure Cloud Computing Platform

Mark Edward Soper — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:49:54 -0500

It was called "Project Red Dog" during development, but this week Microsoft revealed its favorite color for its cloud computing development platform is actually blue - Azure, in fact.

Windows Azure Services Platform was introduced at this week's PDC, and includes the following key components, according to eWeek:

Windows Azure (service hosting, management, low-level scalable storage, computation and networking)
Microsoft SQL Services (databases and reporting)
Microsoft .NET Services (.NET Framework workflow, access control, and so forth)
Live Services (file and media synchronization between PCs, phones, apps and website)
Microsoft SharePoint Services and CRN Services (business content, collaboration, and rapid solution development)

Applications developed using the Azure platform can be tested offline, and can be deployed locally or to the cloud, thanks to the incorporation of existing Microsoft technologies. Azure will first be made available through Microsoft data centers. Developers can use HTTP or other common Internet standards to access Azure services. Learn more at Microsoft's Azure Services Platform website.

What's the appeal of Azure for Microsoft - and developers? According to the Information Week blog, Azure offers scalable pay as you go services. It might not be "The End of Software?" as Information Week wonders, but Azure is the latest sign that services, not shrinkwrapped packages of Microsoft whatever, may be the wave of the future for profitability in Redmond - and for maximum flexibility in uncertain times for developers.

With Amazon.com already in the game, Windows Azure is playing catch up. Will the sky remain the intense "October blue" of azure for Redmond, or will its vision of cloud computing be clouded over by the competition? Developers, you can register for the Community Technology Preview to find out for yourself (and your company). But, whether you're a developer or a user, feel free to click the Comments button to tell us what you think about Windows Azure and cloud computing.

Cloud Wars II: Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud Envelops Windows Server, SQL Server

Mark Edward Soper — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 09:42:30 -0500

Amazon's much more than the "world's biggest bookstore" - its Amazon Web Services division has been offering flexible hosted application development for some time. And this week, Amazon Web Services launched what ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley calls a "pre-emptive strike" against Microsoft's forthcoming "Windows Cloud" operating system by adding Windows Server and Microsoft SQL Server to its product portfolio.

Amazon's move to provide access to Windows Server and SQL Server is significant because it enables developers to have their choice of Linux-based or Windows-based development resources on what Amazon calls its "cost-effective, pay-as-you-go pricing model." Essentially, Amazon's Elastic Computing Cloud service (also known as Amazon EC2) lets developers rent a virtual machine with varying amounts of disk space and transfer capabilities on an as-needed basis without the need to carve out space in a crowded server room or spend long-term dollars on a short-term requirement.

Amazon.com's Chief Technology Officer Werner Vogels points to these benefits of offering Windows Server and SQL Server:

One particular area that customers have been asking for Amazon EC2 with Windows Server was for Windows Media transcoding and streaming. There is a range of excellent codecs available for Windows Media and there is a large amount of legacy content in those formats...many customers want to run ASP.NET websites using Internet Information Server and use Microsoft SQL Server as their database...several customers would like to maintain a global single Windows-based desktop environment using Microsoft Remote Desktop

A private beta of Amazon EC2's Windows offerings is available by request now, with general availability later this fall.

Will Amazon's "pre-emptive strike" steal the silver lining from "Windows Cloud?" Will Microsoft adjust its pricing and licensing strategies to counteract Amazon EC2? Whether you're a developer or a user, the answers to these and similar questions may have a big impact on the applications you'll be running in the not-too-distant future, how well they work, and how much they'll cost to build. What do you think? Hit the Comments button and tell us your thoughts.