So you know about searching using www.live.com...but do you know about www.searchandgive.com?
This site is (which is also powered by Live Search) is a free and easy way to give back to any cause that is important to you. Every time you search, you earn a penny for the non-profit or school of your choice. That may not sound like a lot, but it can add up quickly. So spread the word!
Whether it's your local school or an effort to find a cure, Search and Give will donate a penny each time you use this page to search the Web.
How does it work?
-
Sign in to select a charity
or school (this is easy)
-
Start searching from the
Search & Give home page
-
Live Search will
make the donation
Champion your cause with something you do every day - search the Web.
Here's a method that I use when setting up lab machines that you might find handy. The problem I always have when switching between VMs is keeping track of which VM I am currently logged on to. The resolution to that problem is displaying computer configuration information on the desktop using the old backinfo.exe power toy. This .exe is available as part of the WSSRA Virtual Environments for Development and Test .zip download here and allows you to display computer configuration information on the local desktop automatically at startup.
Here's how to get/use it:
- Download the WSSRA-VE.zip file from http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=50490
- Extract the files from the .zip and run WSSRA-VE_Deployment_Kit.msi to run the WSSRA-Virtual Enterprise Deployment Kit Setup Wizard
- After installation, navigate to <drive letter>:\Program Files\WSSRA-VE_Deployment_Kit_2.1.342.0\BLD\Utils
- Grab the BackInfo.exe and BackInfo.ini files.
- Go to a test computer and tweak the .ini file until you see what you want when bginfo.exe is running.
- Copy the .exe and the .ini files to a location on every computer that you want to display settings on the desktop.
- Create a shortcut to the .exe in the computer's startup folder or add an entry to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion|Run registry key to autostart bginfo.exe.
Here's a snippet of what a part of one of my MMS 2008 lab machine's desktop looked like with bginfo.exe running:
Hopefully you find that as handy as I do.
~Jeff
Just as the title of this post says, the long awaited Configuration Manager 2007 Sample Configurations and Performance Questions whitepaper has been published to the Web and is available for download at: http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/b/9/4b97e9b7-7056-41ae-8fc8-dd87bc477b54/Sample%20Configurations%20and%20Common%20Performance%20Related%20Questions.pdf
Executive Summary:
This document is designed to provide an overview of sample hardware configurations used in stress and scale testing for different size environments. Additionally, it answers common questions about planning and configuring for optimal performance in Configuration Manager 2007.
Happy reading J
~Jeff