Error 0×80040154 indicates SelfSSL can’t open the metabase – which is to be expected on IIS 7 or IIS 7.5 by default as the metabase changed significantly from IIS6 to IIS7 (and SelfSSL is an IIS6 resource kit tool).
On IIS7 and IIS7.5, you need to install the IIS 6 Metabase Compatibility role service to be able to use SelfSSL. You don’t need any of the other IIS 6 role services installed.
I installed Windows 7 build 7000 about a month back and was impressed from day 1. OK, so I work for the company so I’m going to be a bit biased however Win7 is fast, the preview when you hover over a window on the taskbar is really intuitive and getting to network settings is a lot quicker. I miss the sidebar, and find the default Windows Key+E has change to display Library which is annoying. My Tosh Tecra M4 ran Vista like complete dog but Win7 is completely usable with no annoying pauses, it boots fast and sleeps quickly. The only bug I’ve experienced is when resuming from sleep the machine claims it cannot contact the default gateway on the Wifi network. The Troubleshoot Network wizard fixes this (basically by releasing and renewing the IP address lease), lets hope its gone in the final build.
Even running Windows 7 in a VM (Virtual PC or Hyper-V) is fast and totally usable, so it looks like all the optimisation and removal of some Vista features has paid dividens. Of course, Windows 7 benefits from all the Vista drivers that have been released over the last two years, something which Vista struggled with early on. I’ve even installed Win7 on my Media Centre and like the updated UI and greater configuration options which are available.
From the 10th to 16th November, I was working in Silicon Valley with a global IT company based in San Jose. I’d been quite excited about the visit for a few weeks, both because I’d get to visit one of my favourite cities (San Francisco) and because it was my first visit to the valley and Microsofs Silicon Valley Campus.
Despite its high-tech reputation, I’d heard Silicon Valley was basically a huge trading estate. I’d say it was more like a mixture of small businesses, light industry and massive corporate HQs. It felt far smaller than I’d expected with many companies on the list below within a 10 mile area.
Driving around, I mentally ticked off the companies I’d seen;
The most impressive HQs were Google and Oracle (seen from US101 rather than up close), the least impressive being Apple; for such a blue-chip company I’d expected a more open campus rather than a few multi-story office blocks.
I really liked Palo Alto and driving round PARC, it had a nice rural feel to it compared with the rest of the valley. It would be a great experience to live and work in Silicon Valley for a few years.
Its been years in development, and even internally information was scarce until Microsoft publicly announced the release of Windows Azure at the Professional Developers Conference in LA this week.
Codenamed RedDog, Windows Azure is a platform for developers to build applications which run inside Microsofts datacentres. This is in contrast to Amazon Web Services (AWS) which provide a computing platform. For example, using AWS you’ll need to build a virtual machine image and then upload this into AWS. Azure takes care of any virtual machines, letting the developer focus on the application and less on the plumbing.
There are quite a few posts providing details on Azure, I’d suggest you looking at this post from Mary-Jo Foley, the long-time Microsoft watcher whom I met last week.
Today, Azure is running in Microsoft’s Quincy facility, which I had the chance to visit in December last year despite winter storms, road closures and avalanches resulting in a 120mile journey taking around 7 hours. Mike Manos, the man at the top of Microsofts datacentre management tree allowed the BBC to film inside recently, the video can be seen here.
I picked up my replacement laptop on Wednesday and yesterday used Windows Easy Transfer to move my settings and data across from the temporary Windows XP laptop. The process was really simple and I was impressed with how quickly it moved my 5.25Gb of data and settings (less than 45 minutes).
The only things which failed were a 2Gb Outlook PST file which seemed to get corrupted during the transfer (I just used a USB memory stick to copy this over again) and network printers (which I needed to delete and re-install). End to end, it took me about an hour to move off my old laptop onto the new one – complete with all my IE favourites, email, address book, documents and files, desktop settings etc etc etc. I used an Easy Transfer cable which connects the two computers via USB, but you could just as easily use the network or CD/DVD/External HD/USB memory stick.
So, next time you buy a new PC don’t go and waste money paying PC World to transfer files, and don’t fall for the salesman selling you some additional software – just use Windows Easy Transfer which is part of Vista and a free download for XP.
I’ve been using a spare Laptop running Windows XP since my main laptop was stolen last Friday, and its been a revelation to me. There are quite a few Vista features I miss and some are not that obvious before you’ve lost them. In no particula order;
As I said, some of these aren’t that obvious until you’ve lose ‘em. To be fair, I should also list the stuff I don’t miss;
When I got home last night, I fired up one of my spare laptops, copied the HomeServer restore CD ISO image onto it and then created a new Virtual PC 2007 VM. Booting into the restore process worked fine, but for some reason the VM kept losing its network connection during the restore. After 3 attempts, I moved to the main server and repeated the process – a few hours of restore later and I’ve got my “laptop” now running inside a VM along with all data up to a week ago 
I’m impressed with the fact that the VM just booted without any issues even though the underlying hardware is quite different. I was expecting to need to use Safe Mode to change the storage driver – but nope, Vista just booted, I logged on and off I went.
What I didn’t mention last night is that all the confidential data on the laptop was encrypted using EFS. I did look at using BitLocker back in March but it was too much hassle when the machine is already installed. When I get a replacement Laptop I’ll install it with BitLocker from day 1 so I don’t need to worry about encrypting certain folders..
I just spent the evening with Matthew Boettcher a Microsoft colleague, playing pool in Bayswater and my rucksack got stolen with the laptop in it. For years I’ve known that it is a matter of time before something goes missing, and tonight was it. Thank god for my Homeserver which automatically backs-up my laptop every few days. I only have three days of data at risk. Let’s see how easy it is to recover my data tomorrow… Watch for the update on how easy (or not) it is to recover my data onto a different box.
I’m being objective by posting my experiences with the Windows SmartPhone I’ve had since December. This is the 4th Windows Smartphone I’ve had. The first one (the original Orange SPV) was an absolute nightmare, definitely a v1 device. However, we’re talking late 2001 here – and the device had an SD card slot, the ability to browse the web, a full media player capable of MP3, WAV, WMA and WMV (yes, it played video, quite well).
I like PDA-style phones far more than the candy-bar style – in fact the last two phones (Orange M1000 and HTC Tytn) I’ve bought myself and used the company SIM because they weren’t on the list of approved devices.
The TyTN II is a Windows Mobile 6 device with a full slide out QWERY keyboard which is really useful if you do as much email on it as I do. The screen is a bit too small, and performance is not brilliant, but on the whole its a good device. Battery life is good (2-3 days with push email enabled), the 3G signal is pretty reliable (more so than I’ve experienced with the iPhone – but thats on O2 and the TyTN II is on Orange so its unfair to compare them).
The touch-screen interface really does show its age compared to the iPhone (see my blog entry here and here). In fact, the interface is quite frustrating on occasion – having to page through menu after menu to find a function. The keys are all programmable; I’ve set mine up as shortcuts to the apps/features I use most. The Camera is surprisingly good quality (3 Megapixel) with better colour accuracy compared to the Tytn.
The most annoying thing about the device is the browser: Internet Explorer mobile is absolutely rubbish. I’ver installed Opera 9 beta which is far superior, but still nothing compared to Safari on the iPhone.
Compared to the iPhone, the TyTN II is has more features, is more reliable but nowehere near as user friendly or as nice to use.
A few months back, one of my mentees asked me if I’d help him introduce a series of webcasts he was creating for customers.
The result was a 65-minute webcast I co-delivered with an ex-collegaue Jason Heyes last Wednesday. This is now available for watching on-demand. Whilst it requires registration, you can opt-out of all mailings.
Click here to launch.