The UltraTech Zone

There were some excellent technology releases today.  The two I care about the most are Microsoft Windows 7, and the latest update of XeeSM from Xeequa. I expect Windows 7 to be big, big, big in the next few months, and I’ll be dedicating a solid post before the end of the year to talk about the installations I have done.  32-bit and ...

As a technologist, I am always on the lookout for new and exciting products, solutions and discoveries which will be coming to a store near me at some point in the future.  Whenever possible, I look to jump on the beta bandwagon and preview or test drive up-and-coming technology solutions.  Not only is it fun in and of itself, but it ...

As a technologist, I am always on the lookout for new and exciting products, solutions and discoveries which will be coming to a store near me at some point in the future.  Whenever possible, I look to jump on the beta bandwagon and preview or test...(read more)

I’m interested in finding out how many people want to test Windows 7, either for their home networks or their business networks (small or large). I have created a poll via LinkedIn where I hope to capture this information.  If you are a LinkedIn user, please feel free to participate. Thanks!

I just finished reading an article on Windows Vista from InfoWorld, and it makes several really good points. Windows Vista brings a lot to the table that gets de-emphasized by the masses.  It's funny that when Microsoft releases a product that is primarily a refinement of the previous version (XP vs 2000), there are complaints about having ...

I haven't had as much time as I would have liked to keep tabs on PowerShell, or start converting all my scripts to PowerShell, but with the official release of Windows Server 2008, I might just have to make more time. To make matters even more interesting, the folks at Quest Software have released PowerGUI, which is an IDE for PowerShell.  ...

The month of February should see the release of both Service Pack 1 for Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, according to reports published by ComputerWorld, and I'm looking forward to them both. I have only performed a few brief tests of Windows 2008 so far, but I expect to change that over the next few weeks, once I bring my new virtual ...

Lately, I've been so busy with processes and procedures and policies, that I haven't had a chance to play with the upcoming version of Windows Server 2008.  I have had an opportunity to read a number of reports, including the one from eWeek, and it seems that the reports are favorable, especially where the new virtualization features are ...

Or, more precisely, better than many analysts expected.  The analysts always seem to initially expect that the new OS will sell wildly better than the current OS, and then when Microsoft provides any guidance to suggest caution, they downgrade their expectations to ''will probably do poorly''.  Thus, they are always surprised when it ...

Yeah, yeah, it took me long enough.  What can I say?  I finally bit the bullet and installed Vista Ultimate x64 Edition on my laptop.  As I mentioned last month, my Vista upgrade path was not as smooth as I had hoped, since I was going to be forced to perform a clean install, but I must say that the actual installation ...

The issue I speak of relates to how many changes and new features should go into a new release of their software product.  If Microsoft adds lots of new functionality, then customers and analysts conclude that the likelihood of bugs within the new code is high and so they avoid product adoption for months or years or until several service ...

This has been a fun month with all the Daylight Saving Time patching from a myriad of vendors.  (I wonder if anyone has done a study to see how much energy we burned preparing to save three more weeks of daylight?) Although Microsoft is the favorite whipping boy in these situations, they weren't the only vendor that was slow to provide solid ...

Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2) delivers on the Microsoft Trustworthy Computing initiative and illustrates Microsoft's commitment to continually create software products with enhanced security, increased reliability, and simplified administration. The SP2 update can be applied to all Windows Server 2003 products and Windows XP ...

Mark Russinovich has provided another great series of ''Inside Windows'' articles, with his Inside the Vista Kernel postings on TechNet. Part one dealt with: Thread priority and scheduling File-based symbolic links Canceling I/O operations Part two, which is linked above, deals with: Memory management Startup and shutdown Power management ...

As I mentioned earlier this week, I finally got my hands on my official copies of Vista, so I thought I'd see how well an upgrade would work out. Granted, it's not the 64-bit edition that I wanted to deploy, but it game me a chance to see how well Vista would upgrade over a year-old Windows XP installation.    Well, it took longer ...