Microsoft will ship the CD to you free of charge. This CD includes the same Service Pack 2 software that is available for download from Windows Update. You'll wait 4-5 weeks for delivery, according to the site. You can also download the complete service pack here.

Note that Microsoft started the electronic delivery of SP2 to Windows XP Home Edition users last week, and to XP Professional Edition today via the Automatic-Updates distribution route.

Microsoft's latest version of MOM has been released to manufacturing, with retail availability slated for October 1. MOM, or Microsoft Operations Manager, is a console for administering Windows servers and applications, with tools for monitoring and analyzing performance. MOM 2005 includes an easier setup, new user interface and improved built-in security.

MOM 2005 takes the product to a whole new level. Pricing and licensing has also changed.

To enhance and extend MOM 2005 even more, there are five MOM Solution Accelerators available to streamline the way MOM works, integrates and deploys. Solution accelerators at Microsoft are generally chunks of code, tools and prescriptive info you can use to design your own custom extensions and to make their products fit more tightly into your environment:

• Notification Workflow Solution Accelerator is a Microsoft SQL Server–based Notification Services application that can be used to extend notification functionalities of MOM 2005.
• Autoticketing Solution Accelerator provides guidance for automated ticket generation, enabling the automated posting of a request (or ticket) into the Trouble Ticketing (TT) system used for incident management.
• Alert Tuning Solution Accelerator helps reduce the volume of alerts when deploying MOM 2005 management packs.
• Service Continuity Solution Accelerator helps maintain the availability of MOM 2005 service.
• Multiple Management Group Rollup Solution Accelerator allows a business to propagate data from multiple management groups into one data warehouse to create consolidated and aggregated reports.

Check out the animated demo presentation, here, for a high-level explanation of how MOM works. You can also use the MOM 2005 Online Virtual Lab to learn more about the product and how to use it to solve problems in your environment. Looking for more information? Check out the blog published by the Microsoft.com Operations Management team, which did the dog-food work with the product before it was released.

Small businesses with 10 or fewer servers to monitor should check out MOM 2005 Workgroup edition, which is priced appropriately - one flat fee of $499. Nice to see Microsoft taking the needs of the smaller business into account. My company has many more servers than that license would allow, but I know a number of people who will be able to take advantage of it.

[via betanews.com]

Corey Gouker is a Media Center MVP, and he has posted a detailed description of his experiences with a new Creative Portable Media Center Device. Included at the bottom of the article are a couple of Windows Media videos and a gallery of images showing the device in action.

For anyone who has been wondering what these are all about and what you'll really get, check this out - with the videos and his description, it's a view that you've likely not had til now, unless you have been lucky enough to get your grubby hands on one.

Also: Sean Alexander post more links to details about the devices.

[via Scobleizer]

Yesterday, the Application Compatibility Testing and Mitigation Guide for Windows XP Service Pack 2 was published.

This guide considers potential application compatibility issues that may arise after a Service Pack 2 deployment. The guide provides mitigation procedures that can be followed to overcome compatibility issues. Since the mitigation procedures relax the default security configuration, the guide in no way recommends that they should be followed, but if there is no other way of overcoming compatibility issues, they can be applied in the short term.

The Guide also includes a download of example scripts. The scripts demonstrate how to reconfigure a Service Pack 2 computer to overcome compatibility issues. The scripts are designed as functional samples and will require modification for use in a production environment.

I've only flicked though it, but I am very impressed with the level of detail of what I've seen to date.

Robert posts about having to use more than one MSN Messenger account due to limits placed on the service as far as number of contacts you can have on one Messenger passport account. He has to use two computers in order to work with two instances of messenger.

I have the same problem (multiple personalities, that is, but for different reasons than Scoble ), and I am not personally interested in Trillion or other IM interfaces for this purpose, and I Already use Windows messenger for SIP service at work, so I don't want to go there.

It turns out it is possible to run two copies of MSN messenger with different accounts on the same computer at the same time. It used to be that you had to alter the messenger code to do so with a third-party program, which is not allowed under the software license. But more recently there is a program available that starts messenger and acts as a sort of proxy, so you're not (AFAIK - I will promptly remove this if I am wrong, of course...) in violation of the MSN Messenger software agreement, which specifically says you can't modify the MSFT binaries.

It also starts up in "appear off-line" state by default, which for some people is helpful. It's not a perfect program, but it works pretty darned well.

JnrzLoader 6.2.0137 is the program name, and it is available to download from http://www.mess.be (along with a lot of other nifty stuff).

Of course this advice is totally without warranty, your mileage may vary, scan your files, yada yada. But it works for me. :)

This was hot stuff in '89... In 1986 I has an IBM Model 5150 that I ran two BBS'es on, and 1200 baud was huge.