Brad Bird at myITforum.com

Private Cloud Boot Camp in Ottawa!

Rantings of an IT Pirate — Thu, 03 May 2012 15:30:44 GMT

Private Cloud Boot Camp Brought to you by Do you keep hearing the term Private Cloud wherever you go? Are you curious to understand how you can enable Private Cloud in your organization? Curious to understand how System Center 2012 can be used to enable...(read more)

Local Microsoft Professionals Panel: Windows 8 and Server 2012 Futures

Rantings of an IT Pirate — Tue, 01 May 2012 01:55:33 GMT

As in previous years, we like to have our May event as a Microsoft panel. This year, I have reached out to Microsoft to engage with some different professionals. The panel will feature an introduction of these professionals along with what they do at...(read more)

OWSUG April Event – Bitlocker in the Enterprise

Rantings of an IT Pirate — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 20:17:58 GMT

Bitlocking your entire fleet of computers can be a bit daunting and if you lose the keys to the drive it can be disastrous. Take away the pain points of managing the encryption keys and bitlocker with Microsoft Bitlocker Administration and Monitoring...(read more)

Let STEP know how they did!

Rantings of an IT Pirate — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 12:33:36 GMT

Did you enjoy last night’s presentation? Was it effective? Let STEP know how they did, fill out a SHORT survey here: http://tinyurl.com/STEP423 Best, Brad Bird OWSUG President...(read more)

Getting Started with Cloud Computing

Rantings of an IT Pirate — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 17:33:47 GMT

You’ve likely heard about how Office 365 and Windows Intune are great applications to get you started with Cloud Computing. Many of you emailed me asking for more info on what Cloud Computing is, including the distinction between "Public Cloud"...(read more)

It’s About You: Tell Microsoft How They’re Doing!

Rantings of an IT Pirate — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 17:31:00 GMT

Every fall and spring, a survey goes out to a few hundred thousand IT folk in Canada asking what they think of Microsoft as a company. The information they get from this survey helps them understand what problems and issues you’re facing and how they...(read more)

Need help with software licensing? Read on…

Rantings of an IT Pirate — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 17:26:32 GMT

Figuring out which software licensing options best suit your needs while being cost-effective can be confusing. Some businesses end up making their purchases through retail stores which means they miss out on volume licensing opportunities and others...(read more)

OWSUG March Session - STEP event: Architecting and Supporting the Back-End Infrastructure for the Consumerization of IT

Rantings of an IT Pirate — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 00:59:04 GMT

Architecting and Supporting the Back-End Infrastructure for the Consumerization of IT This two-hour session will show you how to plan for, build, and manage your VDI environment on Microsoft’s Hyper-V, using Citrix’s Xen Desktop and System Center...(read more)

Having trouble Keeping Track of Current SQL Builds or Cumulative Updates?

Rantings of an IT Pirate — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 14:46:18 GMT

I work with System Center Products all the time and these ALL rely on SQL Server as the back end database server. One issue that comes up ALOT is keeping SQL current and patched. For those unaware, SQL like IIS, like Windows or any other application...(read more)

TechNet Wiki is NOT Dead! Windows 8 Test lab guides now published

Rantings of an IT Pirate — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 18:47:27 GMT

I love Test lab Guide guidance. Never heard of it? Haven’t tried it? Have a look here: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/7807.windows-server-8-beta-test-lab-guides.aspx...(read more)

Holy Smokes, there is ALOT going on in the Ottawa IT PRO Community–Check it out!

Rantings of an IT Pirate — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 19:02:00 GMT

That is an understatement… At OWSUG here is what is going on at the moment: This Thursday Feb 16, there is a Lync Server 2010 presentation being offered at our regular monthly event. See below: http://www.eventbrite.ca/event/2907254677 On Friday...(read more)

OWSUG February Event: Lync Server 2010 - One year after unleashing the LYNCs

Rantings of an IT Pirate — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 23:47:00 GMT

David Marks shares his experiences from the past year with his project to introduce Microsoft Lync Server 2010 at one Government of Canada department. A demonstration of the tools available for the planning and deployment of a Microsoft Lync environment...(read more)

OWSUG and Microsoft sponsored IT Virtualization Boot Camp in Ottawa

Rantings of an IT Pirate — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:49:59 GMT

These events are live and they’re HOT. 40 seats per event but they’re not free. The event cost is $25/person and registration is NOT optional. 40 seats is a HARD limit because that is the number of computers. Payments are collected via...(read more)

STEP Event from January OWSUG meeting Deploying Windows 7 for Enterprises of ANY size–Still waiting?

Rantings of an IT Pirate — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 03:18:10 GMT

This presentation was popular and very well received. Members asked me to post the slides so here they are! Right Click link and Choose Save As to download Windows 7 for Enterprises of ANY size–Still waiting?...(read more)

Weird Bug/Limitation in the SCOM 2007 R2 Maintenance Mode Scheduler from the Administration Toolkit

Rantings of an IT Pirate — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 20:34:39 GMT

I have been fighting with the maintenance mode scheduler for a fair bit of time at this customer of mine. They have a significant challenge. They have pods of web and DB servers with F5 load balancers which they rotate on a schedule to synchronize...(read more)