I’ve come across a couple of good free online training websites to update your skills for the System Center 2012 releases, which includes SCCM 2012.

The first is the Microsoft Virtual Academy – http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/ . In their own words – “Improve your IT skill set and help advance your career with a free, easy to access training portal. Learn at your own pace, focusing on Microsoft technologies, gain points and get recognition”. One of the track you can do is “Overview and Infrastructure Changes in SCCM 2012″ which has 6 modules covering a lot of the functionality that SCCM 2012 provides. The direct link for this is – http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/tracks/overview-and-infrastructure-changes-in-sccm-2012

The second resource is the Microsoft TechNet Virtual Labs: System Center located at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/systemcenter/bb539977. There are 5 SCCM 2012 virtual labs available at the moment. In their own words “TechNet Virtual Labs enable you to quickly evaluate and test Microsoft’s newest products and technologies through a series of guided, hands-on labs that you can complete in 90 minutes or less. There is no complex setup or installation required, and you can use TechNet Virtual Labs online immediately, free”. Personally, I think these are great because you get to use the Microsoft virtual machines to do whatever you want, even if its not the lab material – so it save you time as you don’t need to run up your own test lab.

On a side note there is also the hydration kit available for SCCM 2012 RC 1 – see http://www.deploymentresearch.com/Blog/tabid/62/EntryId/48/The-Hydration-Kit-for-ConfigMgr-2012-RC1-is-available-for-download.aspx

Here are some interesting numbers on what has been happening on this blog in the year 2011:

http://jetpack.me/annual-report/10480362/2011/

There is a simple and great extension of the Lync 2010 client that can allow you to have a real-time conversation with someone in a completely different language.

For example, just by adding a few registry entries, you can have an entire Lync conversation with someone who doesn’t speak English and Lync will do the language translation back and forth.

There is more information here but basically you just need to add the following current user registry entries and a new window is added to the Lync client.


Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

Fantastic add-on!!
 
 

I’ve recently got my first iPhone and assumed that all of my Windows Media playlists would never work on the iPhone. Well there seems to be a way that worked for me.

1. Save your WMP playlist as an M3U file.  To do this you can use the “Save Playlist As” option from the list pane when you’re editing the playlist. Then change the “Save as type:” field from WPL (the default) to M3U and also specify the name and location of the file.
2. Open Windows Explorer to the directory where you saved the M3U file.
3. Open iTunes alongside Windows Explorer.
4. Drag the M3U file from Windows Explorer to the PLAYLISTS section of iTunes. (If you want to create it as a new playlist be sure to drop it in the left-hand pane under the PLAYLISTS section.)  This process will then read the M3U file and create the playlist in iTunes.
5. Connect your iPhone and drag your new playlist over to your iPhone.

I’m usually a big fan of whatever rolls off the Microsoft production line. Not so with the first generation of Xbox 360s from a few years ago – these have to be one of the most flawed pieces of technology in history. After getting my early Xbox 360 fixed no less than 3 times I was frustratingly still getting the red ring of death.

I then implemented a permenant fix of my own – I took it outside and smashed it with a mattock – very satisfying after many years of frustrations.

PS. Yes I did buy a new one on sale for $198.
 
 

After years of using Office 2007 & 2010, sometimes I still wish to go back to the menus of Office 2003 where there were no ribbons. I’ve recently come across a free (for personal use) tool called UBitMenu which allows us to do this.

After downloading the setup from http://www.ubit.ch/software/ubitmenu-languages/ , close all of your Office applications and run the quick setup. Once installed, you will now see a new ‘Menu’ tab in Word, Excel and Powerpoint that will take you back to the familiar menus of Word 2003! Excellent!
 

Word 2010 with the UBitMenu addin installed