Joseph Hinkle at MyITForum.com

I like TaxAct myself, but PCWorld has a nice breakdown of the competition.

As I mentioned earlier, I'm evaluating different software virtualization options for my company. I know I'll be looking at several, but I decided Altiris SVS would be a good starting place. My company has been using Wise products since InstallBuilder 8, so virtualization using tools we already have and use is very appealing.

It really is interesting to see all of the different approaches that are used for virtualizing software. Some companies use an agent, some don't. Some allow virtualized applications to interact with one another, some don't. SVS uses an agent to manage the virtualization packages, called "layers" in their product. They also allow the applications running in different layers to see one another.

This presents an interesting opportunity. So far, the tools I've seen don't allow this kind of interaction, causing some angst in virtualizing Office due to the number of plug-ins and other hooks from third-party applications. SVS allows Office to be virtualized in one layer, plug-ins to be in other, separate layers, or even installed natively in Windows. This flexibility is very comforting to me.

The product comes in two flavors: standard and professional. Standard provides virtualization and an agent license. Professional adds streaming and license management capabilities. There is an unsupported SMS connector that allows layers to be deployed and activated with normal software distribution packages. I'm not sure that this approach will give me the flexibility that I want, since I'd rather have the set-it-and-forget-it functionality that the streaming server provides.

The license management capabilities of the streaming server were quite nice. There are a few features that really stood out to me. There is a license pool, which allows licenses to be allocated automatically and access denied - or not - if there is no license available. The product also allows licenses to be automatically deactivated after a specified time period of inactivity, like traditional metering capabilities. One interesting thought was a "single-use" license. Essentially, a license could be allocated for a single use, providing true concurrent usage.

Obviously, I am fairly impressed by the product. Honestly, I wasn't expecting to like it this much. I really liked SoftGrid when I saw it initially, but SVS adds some really intriguing flexibility.

The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator is an agentless tool that will find computers on a network and perform a detailed inventory of the computers using Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI), the Remote Registry Service, or the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). Using the inventory data, the tool will assess and report whether computers can run Windows Vista, Microsoft Office 2007, Microsoft Application Virtualization (SoftGrid), and Windows Server 2008. This includes assessment of device driver availability and recommendations for hardware upgrades that may be required.

Download details: Microsoft Assessment and Planning

I just finished pulling down ISO images of the SP1 upgrade for Vista and a slipstreamed version of the base installation.  Hit licensing.microsoft.com if you have an account.

I'm building a new laptop for myself and, since all of my blogging was previously done on my Mac, I was on the hunt for a new blogging client.  I have used w.bloggar for years on my work PC, but I've never been satisfied with the HTML only interface.

So far, I like Windows Live Writer quite a bit.  I'm not completely happy with the interface, but for free, I don't have any real complaints.  I was most impressed with the self-configuration option that picked up the Community Server blogs here without any problem.

The only down side that I've seen so far is that it won't install on my Vista box at work.  I'm not sure if it is a proxy problem or a problem with my PC, but I may try to figure it out if I have time tomorrow.

The primary way that my company grows is through acquisition. It is rather typical of manufacturing, as building facilities costs money, then customers have to be found to fill the new capacity. From an IT perspective, it leaves an interesting question: how far does the integration effort go?

I've been through a major acquisition and several minor ones. In all cases, we did a rip and replace, spreading our systems throughout the new locations. This has afforded us a great deal of flexibility in IT over the years, since we're keeping things standardized. Supporting 5000 users isn't a lot different from supporting 2000, except for the scale.

What if that isn't the case? I'd love to hear some of your stories about integrating disparate systems and what struggles or triumphs were part of the process.

Apple released a software update for the iPod Touch and iPhone today, incrementing the version to 1.1.4. In typical Apple style, they weren't very forthcoming with the information about the update. This time is was a classic: 'includes bug fixes and supersedes all previous versions'. That's it.

Interesting summary of capabilities and limitations.

I thought it was interesting to see a magazine about Microsoft products publish an open letter to Steve Jobs, but I agree with almost all of it.

With Apple's image at an all-time high (your stock isn't too shabby, either), it does seem arrogant for me to offer advice, but I believe Apple is missing out on a golden opportunity. And that opportunity is the enterprise. How many IT pros use Macs at home or buy them for the family? Isn't this a perfect target audience?

[From Redmond | Column: Dear Steve: Think Enterprise]

They switched from the KY-AK game with 45 seconds left to play to show the tip-off of the Duke-St. John's game. Bleh.

The patch management doc I promised got held up by a surprise management chain upheaval and subsequent meetings, but it is coming, I promise!

That was quick.

As with any software release, our commitment is to continuous improvement, and we are currently finishing up the first Office 2008 update, 12.0.1, which contains fixes for high-priority issues we’ve identified. We’re targeting a March 11th, 2008 release date, which will automatically be available via Microsoft Auto Update, and as a download from Mactopia at: http://www.microsoft.com/mac/downloads.mspx.

[From Mac Mojo: The Office for Mac Team Blog]

I spent most of the day today finalizing our patch management policy/strategy. It has been an interesting evolution for me, since I've watched the process grow from the basic patch management I was doing in SMS 2.0 to the well-tunes process I outlined for my staff today. While the tools have gotten better - and much more reliable - the process has not changed that much in my organization.

Our users, like most, have little tolerance for much of anything. I work for a manufacturing company, so spending money on a wake-on-LAN solution was never an option. We've experimented with different timings, patch groupings, and other mind tricks to help with the process. Today, I finally realized what I didn't like about our existing process.

Essentially, the process was unmanageable. Clients got advertisements they didn't need, resulting in unnecessary inventories. Patches weren't grouped into appropriate sets that made it easier to transition to a maintenance mode for that group. Clients rebooted multiple times, depending on different configuration items. In other words, it was bad. I was never really challenged on it because of some extenuating circumstances - the same ones that pulled me away from posting here for a year and a half - but that's all better now and I have time to focus on process improvement.

Tomorrow, I'll post a sanitized version of the result of my work, along with some queries that I'm using to build the collections that we're distributing to. I'm sure that someone is doing something better and, if so, I'd love to hear ideas for improving the process. If nothing else, I hope that it can serve as a starting point for a patch management policy and procedure for another needy admin.

I had a site full of clients that seemed to be using random servers for updates instead of the local repository. After changing the policy so that it could only fall back to our central site, the clients still fell back consistently. After some log diving, my first with McAfee, I found the following:

• Looking at the agent logs from the McAfee console is mostly useless for troubleshooting this issue, as no server is actually listed for any of the processes.
• The FrameSvc log at the top of the log page for that client is much more helpful. In the details, the error "SiteStat.xml is invalid" was found, which led me to the server (which was obvious, but the server guys didn't think it was their problem initially)
• After checking http://<siteserver>:9601/software/sitestat.xml I found that the repository was disabled. It was a simple fix, but somewhat painful to find from the client-side.

Here is some more information about SCMDM:

Device Management solution that integrates directly into a Windows Server infrastructure
Full, Over-The-Air device provisioning
Automatic deployment of targeted applications to devices
Secure data channel from the device to the corporate network
Enablement of core LOB scenarios in a mobile environment unlike before

[From Matt Hester's WebLog : System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008 has gone RTM!]