Last month, Microsoft released the Microsoft Forefront Integration Kit for Network Access Protection, a solution accelerator that enables their Forefront Client Security products to interoperate with the Network Access Protection (NAP) capabilities included in Windows Server 2008. In a nutshell, it allows an integrated system of policy compliance and real-time checking of the status of a computer's Forefront security status, as well as remediation and access protection for machines that fall or are found to be out of compliance.

Using the technologies together, administrators can leverage the state of a client computer as part of the information and policy status that NAP leverages in controlling access to the network.

You can use the Kit to help protect your network infrastructure by configuring a Forefront Client Security compliance health policy across your network, monitoring the operational health of Forefront Client Security in real time, and remediating problems that arise.

More and better in-depth defense mechanisms, and ones that work well together on top of that, are good to see coming out of Microsoft and others. It's the kind of progress that's needed to stay on top of quickly evolving threats, and to proactively keep them from spreading.

(via Dan Griffin)

I'm in warm and sunny Orlando for the IT week of Tech Ed. My cohort Richard and I will be interviewing, making the speaker contest happen, and generally staying busy through Friday. If you are at Tech Ed this week, be sure to drop by the Tech Ed fishbowl in the exhibition hall, or send and email and let me know. It would be great to meet new people and catch up with others.

Most of my friends know that every now and then I operate public fireworks displays - as in the big ones with hundreds or thousands of shells, way up in the sky and loud as hell. It's a fun side gig, and I am licensed in Oregon and Washington to run the displays.

This year for the July 4 celebration, I am once again operating the Walla Walla, Washington show. I ran last year's show and am headed back. But I certainly can't do it alone, and so this is an invitation to anyone in the area (meaning in Walla Walla or in the Portland/Vancouver/etc. area) who might be interested in joining me as part of the pyro crew to speak up and join in!

And I'm quite serious. We'll load mortars and set up some thousands of shells and stuff, do a lot of fun and interesting training and safety stuff, learn about how fireworks work, and generally have a fun time. It's not lounging/leisure time - In fact there's quite a bit of manual work of a reasonable nature, and it can get hot. But pretty much without fail, people who join the crew have a great time and are glad they did it. Some get hooked, like Travis and Jenn, who keep coming back for more year after year. Suckers. Heheheh. Be sure to check out Travis' blog entry and Jenn's pictures from last year's show to give you a bit of an idea of what it's like.

So, who can participate? Anyone 18 years of age or older (you have to be 21 years old to fire a show, 18 to help set up and whatnot), who is not restricted from handling regulated explosives (in other words, you can't be a convicted felon or certifiably insane - sorry). You'll be doing some moderate labor (some lifting, carrying, etc). Obviously nobody on the crew can consume alcohol on that day (until the show is over, at least) and you can certainly think of other obvious things that would be safety no-no's.

If you're interested, great! Let me know as soon as you can. I need to firm up a crew list in the next week or two. All I ask is that once confirmed, please make sure you are actually planning to be there. We'll provide the lodging, food, drinks, training and lots of fun. You get to tell people (kids, grandkids, friends, and lame non-believers) about how you are so awesome becuase you helped blow up tons of cool explosives for the Walla Walla community. Just be warned: It can be addictive. Ask Travis and Jenn. :)

To entice you, here is a video with some highlights from last year's show. The video is only a few minutes long; the actual show was close to 20 minutes.

A reporter from Forbes Magazine, Brian Caulfield, has been sneaking around a bit, asking questions, and taking pictures from various public-domain locations where he thinks Apple's next-gen iPhone (or APple Tablet, or next-gen iMac, or all of the above) are being dispatched from.

Tons of boxes overflowing a large warehouse, courier service trucks in drives coming and going, no-label boxes and warehouse workers being cagey but saying basically nothing. But when you start to stack up so much circumstantial evidence it's pretty convincing. If nothing else, it generates great hype and gets people like me to pay attention and write about it. Marketing madness.

What I really want to know: Where and when to line up as an existing AT&T customer who wants to upgrade, and how much cash to bring with me. I'm guessing/surmising the answer is sometime in the next week and a half, and $200 (plus a pen to sign a contract extension).

TechCrunch is reporting that Google is releasing Gmail Labs this evening, and is also outlining some of the details as they hear them.

Gmail engineers come up with new ideas all the time. Gmail Labs is our place to try them out and get your feedback. None of these features are really ready for prime time yet, so they might change, break, or disappear at any time.

Very cool. You can choose which ones you want to use, turn them on and off. Check back in a little while - all Gmail users will be able to take advantage.

At 6pm PT they’re launching Gmail Labs – it will be a tab on top of settings, a list of features that are rough, have gone through almost no filtering. Using the send feedback link users can go to the Google Conversation. Every user will have this available.

The first batch will include 13 new features being tested now, all created by Gmail engineers. Everyone will have access to these.

If you're like me, you rely on Google a lot to help you though your day. There are a few sites out there that - much to my frustrated chagrin - include their content in Google's index but won't let you see the content when you click the search results link - unless you sign up for an account (sometimes you even have to pay). I know there are some ways around the blocked access (Google can see the content, so there are open doors), but what I really want is a way to avoid seeing those sites in my search results.

As it turns out, excluding a domain from search results is very simple. It's not very clearly documented anywhere, but I'll tell you here, so you'll be a tiny bit smarter and look really cool to whomever you show it to in the future.

To start, one key thing about searching with Google that we need to understand is that in pretty much any Google search you can exclude anything you want by preceding it with a minus sign when you type your term into the search box. Knowing this, we can exclude almost anything - including a domain/site.

Next, we need to know how to search and specify a domain in our search query term. We do this by entering the word "site," followed by a colon, followed by the domain name. For example, I can search for an exact match on my name within this site's domain by structuring my search term like this:

Similarly, if I want to search for exact matches on "Greg Hughes," but this time I want to search all sites except greghughes.net, I do it like this:

Note the "minus sign" that precedes the "site:" search operator in this case. That's how we tell Google to exclude the site/domain specified.

So there you have it. Want to exclude a domain from your search term? Just specify the domain with "-site:" and you're all set.

But what if you don't want to specify the domain to exclude every time by hand? In that case, set up a Google Custom Search Engine (http://www.google.com/coop/cse/) and specify during setup that you want your custom search engine to include results from the entire Internet. Then, after your search engine has been created, go to the Control Panel, choose the "Sites" tab, and from there you can specify as many domains as you like to exclude from every search. You'll get a custom search engine that you can tweak to your heart's content.



That's it - hope it helps someone in need. Enjoy!