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Instead of going to a morning session, I participated in an Exchange Focus Group, looking at features and feature names for the upcoming Exchange 12. it was a great chance to provide some feedback. Plus you get a gratuity from Microsoft for participating. You can pick anything from software, like Microsoft office, to wireless keyboards and mice and other things.

The focus group went a bit long, si I worked in the CommNet until lunch, then afterwards attended “MGT410 Advanced Tips and Tricks for Getting the Most Out of Windows Server Update Services”, “DSK215 Longhorn Client Deployment”, and “DSK210R Longhorn Client Security Advancements”. Both Longhorn sessions have me really looking forward to getting my hands on Longhorn Beta 1 when it is released. The changes they have made to deploying the OS with the introduction of the WIM file and other changes will make my life much easier. Having images which can be deployed, independent of the HAL, will halve the number of images I have to maintain!

The security improvements they are making in Longhorn should go a long ways to addressing a lot of the criticism they currently receive about Windows security. Making it possible for users to work in Windows without having to be logged in as an admin all the time is a significant improvement. The key is going to be getting folks to upgrade when Longhorn is available, especially the home user.

The party at Universal Studios was a fun way to spend the evening. I’ve visited Universal Studios in Hollywood several years ago, but never visited the Orlando park. The food was pretty good, at least what they were serving in the restaurants. I heard the buffets out in the street were so-so. Rides were mixed, The Mummy, Shrek in 4D, men in Black Alien Attack, and Terminator 2 3D were all fun. Jaws was OK. Our boat captain had an incredible shrill voice and it was excruciating to listen to him shriek and scream his way through his script. Twister was a waste of time and listening to Bill Paxton go on and on about tornadoes and what an awesome force of nature they are just made it worse.

Just a quick post, because I need to pick up my luggage and hop a bus back to the airport for a morning flight back home. Unfortunately my flight schedule didn’t work out to attend any of the Friday sessions. Next year, I plan on staying through the weekend to avoid that problem and visit with family in Massachusetts.

I’ll post my brief summary of Day Five later tonight as well as my final swag tally!

See you next year in Boston at TechEd 2006!

The TechEd Store has “Geek” t-shirts back in stock as of this afternoon! They were moving pretty good, so if you want one, you should probably stop by soon. These are the shirts that they sold out of on Sunday.

Some very good sessions today. The three I attended were “SEC350 Tips and Tricks to Running Windows with Least Privilege”, “SVR315 Introduction to Data Protection Server (DPS)”, and “SVR300R Security Configuration Wizard in Windows Server 2003 SP1”.

SEC350 was a great presentation on ways you can run Windows as a non-admin and still get the access you need when you need it. This is an issue that has been simmering for a while back at the office, and I think this session is going to get me to move forward on this and start locking things back down again. Users aren’t going to like it, but in the threat environment we’re in today, you just can’t expect your luck to continue for much longer. The idea of a zero day exploit is a scary one.

SVR315 gave me some more detailed info on what Data Protection Server, now called Data Protection Manager, can do for me. I haven’t had time to look into it much before TechEd, so this session was a good overview into the product as it is shaping up to be released later this year. Plus there was a clear explanation of what it can do now and what they’re planning for v2. I like the idea of shipping the data off to a separate server and have the snaps and restores take place there rather than on the protected servers. Any time I can manage a process from one location instead of on the individual servers, I’ll take it.

SVR300R was a last minute change. I was going to go to the IPSEC session, but I figured knowing more about SCW would be more beneficial when I get back to work. I looked at SCW after I upgraded a few of our servers to SP1, but backed off since I didn’t feel I knew enough about what the tool was doing. Well, Jesper Johansson presented SCW in a way that was both entertaining (he is a really funny guy) and informative. I really feel like I can go back and start using SCW to help secure our environment and make effective use of the tool.

On the transportation front, I discovered that if I get off the bus at the first hotel on our route, I can walk to my hotel and easily beat the bus before it gets to the Crowne Plaza. I still need to figure out what I’m doing on Fridays to get back to the airport though. Shuttles don’t run until noon and I have an 11:20 flight. Hate to take a cab because of the cost, but maybe I can find someone who wants to share.

Went to the Influencer Party at Matrix & Metropolis. Food was good and the evening was fun, but I’m pretty burned out on going to Pointe Orlando. A little more variety in venues and events would have been nice. I

A couple suggestions for people attending the breakout sessions here at Tech Ed.

Set Your Phone/PDA/Blackberry/etc to Vibrate—C’mon people, all of these portable devices have a vibrate feature. If you are smart enough to develop complex software applications and maintain corporate computing infrastructure, I think you can learn how to set your phone to vibrate. I find it to be quite disturbing, especially yesterday when one person let their phone keep ringing and ringing and ringing. If you can hear it, we all can hear it.

Take Conversations Outside—I’ve been in a few breakout sessions where people start carrying on conversations in the room while the speaker is taking questions. If you’re there to listen to the questions, then you shouldn’t be having a conversation. If you don’t care about the questions and want to talk to someone, take it outside. Some of us would like to hear what other people are asking.