Windows 8.1 what’s new(ish)

I suspect if Dr Evil used Windows 8 he would probably have said “Windows frickin' 8!”; however it looks like Microsoft “may” have seen some sense, I say may because everything is subject to change.

- It looks like the Start Button is back which links to the Start Screen, so small yeah!

- It also looks like Boot to Desktop has been added, so another yeah!

- The Start screen looks like it can be sorted to show an “All Apps” instead of live tiles, so semi start menu which is better than nothing I guess, so another yeah.

- The metro background can display the same desktop background which should allow for a more seamless switch to the Start screen, so yeah baby!.

More information can be found here and here;

I must admit that I couldn't really warm to Windows 8; it wasn’t the changes that put me off per se, rather the stubbornness from Microsoft telling us that we had to use it or stay with Windows 7.

The title says new(ish) because the main features requested are not new and should have been in Windows 8 from day one!  Microsoft could have easily hidden the features or used group policy to enable them; Windows 8 should have transitioned Windows 7 into Windows 9. 

I believe that this was a win for consumers; something had to change and I’m glad Microsoft have seen some sense.

So in the words of Austin Powers “Au contraire baby, you can't resist me”

XBOX One

One xbox to rule them all …?

 

XBOX One Reveal video is here;

Outlook Web App 2013 Layout tweaks

If your accessing Exchange 2013 or Office 365 OWA on a portable/touch device you can use the following URL tweak to change the layout.

Wide Format for Tablets (?layout=twide)
https://mail.contoso.com/owa/?layout=twide

Narrow Format for Phones(?layout=tnarrow)
https://mail.contoso.com/owa/?layout=tnarrow

Light Format (?layout=light)
https://mail.contoso.com/owa/?layout=light

Normal Format for Phones(?layout=normal)
https://mail.contoso.com/owa/?layout=normal

More information can be found here;

Windows 8.1

Public preview available via the Windows Store 26th June 2013.

More information can be found here and here.

Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 Management Pack

Exchange Server 2013 Management Pack Documentation

• Exchange Server 2013 Management Pack Documentation provides detailed instructions and descriptions on how to import and use the Exchange Server 2013 Management Pack
• Exchange Server 2013 Management Health Set documentation comprehensive list of health sets and details

Overview

The Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 Management Pack provides comprehensive service health information for your Exchange organization.

The Exchange 2013 Management Pack is engineered for organizations that include servers running Exchange 2013.

The key feature of this management pack is user focused monitoring. The simplified dashboard focuses on the user experience and makes it easier for you quickly determine exactly what your users are experiencing.

Feature Summary

The Exchange Server 2013 Management Pack works with the Managed Availability feature in Exchange 2013. The alerts within the System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) portal indicate unhealthy states as reported by the Managed Availability components in Exchange 2013.

The following are some of the new features in the Exchange 2013 Management Pack:

• Simplified dashboard The dashboard of the Exchange 2013 Management Pack has been simplified and refined into the following three categories
  • Active Alerts Provides a list of all outstanding alerts in your organization.
  • Organization Health Provides an overview of the overall service health in your organization.
  • Server Health Provides an overview of the health of individual servers in your organization.
• User focused monitoring Exchange 2013 introduces a monitoring and recovery infrastructure called Managed Availability. Managed Availability focuses on the user experience. All Exchange 2013 components have built-in monitors that detect problems and attempt to recover the service availability. Any issues that can't be recovered automatically are escalated to the Exchange 2013 Management Pack as an alert.

Download can be found here; more information can be found here.

AWS Management Pack for Microsoft System Center

What is the AWS Management Pack for Microsoft System Center?
The AWS Management Pack is an extension to Microsoft System Center Operations Manager that enables you to view and monitor your AWS resources directly in the Operations Manager console. This way, you get a single pane of glass to view and monitor your resources, whether they are on-premises or in the AWS cloud.

Which AWS resources can I monitor using the AWS Management Pack?
You can monitor following AWS resources using the AWS Management Pack:

• Amazon EC2 instances (Microsoft Windows and Linux)
• Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) volumes
• Elastic Load Balancing
• AWS CloudFormation stacks
• AWS Beanstalk applications
  

Which versions of System Center Operations Manager can I use?
The AWS Management Pack is available for “System Center 2012 – Operations Manager” and “System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2”.

More information can be found here and here;