Blog

This Week in BPOS News 5/6

This week in BPOS news is a recurring segment on the Microsoft Online Services Team Blog that covers news from all sectors of Cloud Computing and the Microsoft Online Services business suite known as the Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS). You can read all past This Week in BPOS News segments here. For this week in BPOS news we learn about a small town that is cashing in and creating jobs with the Cloud, and discover a great resource for anyone moving from BPOS to Office 365. 1.

New Time and Task Management Resource Center on TechNet

A new Time and Task Management resource center has been added on TechNet! This resource center provides links to articles, training, videos, and downloads that focus on time and task management using Project Server 2010. If you’re looking for information on setting up or using timesheets and task progress tracking in Project Web App, the Time and Task Management resource center is a great starting point. The following resource centers are also available on TechNet: Business Intelligence Demand Management Updates Upgrade and Migration

Past and Upcoming Microsoft Project Webcasts

Quick post to remind you that there are a few publically available (yes totally free of charge) webcast about Microsoft Project and Microsoft Project Server this month. For instance: Project Server Development for SharePoint Developers, Thursday, May 05, 2011 8:00 AM Pacific Time What’s new in Project 2010 and Visio 2010?

25 Cmdlets to Manage Group Policy using Windows PowerShell

You can use Windows PowerShell to manage Group Policy . Here are 25 cmdlets you can use to retrieve information and perform common tasks. Follow our daily tips: • facebook.com/TechNetTips • twitter.com/TechNetTips • blogs.technet.com/tnmag

Understand and Configure Geolocation in Internet Explorer 9

Understand and Manage Internet Explorer 9 Tracking Protection

Internet Explorer 9 includes a new security feature called Tracking Protection . Here’s a quick look at how Tracking Protection works and how you can manage this feature . Follow our daily tips: • facebook.com/TechNetTips • twitter.com/TechNetTips • blogs.technet.com/tnmag

This Week in BPOS News 4/29

This week in BPOS news is a recurring segment on the Microsoft Online Services Team Blog that covers news from all sectors of Cloud Computing and the Microsoft Online Services business suite known as the Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS). You can read all past This Week in BPOS News segments here. For this week in BPOS news we learn about Microsoft’s new specialty servers, and how Microsoft earned FISMA certification in the cloud. Microsoft Reveals its Specialty Servers, Racks Microsoft revealed the details and designs of new specialty servers and racks. Microsoft engineer, Dileep Bhandarkar, knew that a sleeker and more efficient server was needed, “When Microsoft saw its server counts and data center footprint growing, it became clear that we needed to improve efficiency.” Our first BPOS story comes from Data Center Knowledge and outlines the new Microsoft servers being revealed. The new half-width server design allows for Microsoft to optimize server energy usage. Idle server usage is dropping from using “50 percent of the power (used when the server is active)….to about 30 percent,” says Bhandarkar. Microsoft is not the only company to introduce new efficient servers. Google and the Facebook Open Compute project have also been a part of this “broader industry conversion.” “This is not rocket science,” said Bhandarkar. “Smart people facing the same problems will come up with similar solutions. Driving the entire industry forward helps us in the long run.” What do you think of the new designs? What do you think of the industry shifting its focus to more efficient servers? Leave your thoughts below. Microsoft’s BPOS-Federal system receives FISMA certification, lands USDA as customer * image source Microsoft BPOS has recently received the Federal Information Security Management Act, or FISMA, certification. This certification makes it easier for Microsoft to offer the government cloud services. The United States Department of Agriculture is one of those organizations that will be moving 120,000 employees to Microsoft’s cloud. Microsoft is also making a push to for more FISMA certification across other cloud services. A quote from The Next Web states that “We [Microsoft] plan to pursue FISMA certification and accreditation for Office 365, our next generation cloud productivity suite, after it launches.” What do you think of the FISMA certification? What other Microsoft products should receive the FISMA certificate? Leave your comments below. What are your thoughts about the stories we shared with you this week? Did you see a story you want to share with us? Let us know what other topics you’d like to see. You can comment on this blog post or send an email to our community mailbox . Follow us on Twitter and like our Facebook page.

Wedding Planning Has Never Been Easier and Fun!

Rumor has that to plan such an important day even the king and the queen of this world plan carefully using Microsoft Project … With the 2010 version the groom and the bride can easily visualize a timeline of the wedding, quickly allocate resource using the team planner, be in charge of the schedule using manually scheduled tasks/inactive tasks and last but not least sync this schedule with Office 365 so all involved can collaborate on the wedding plan…

April 2011 Project Cumulative Updates

I’ve just posted the links to the April CU (April 2011 Cumulative Updates for Project and SharePoint Servers) – https://blogs.technet.com/b/projectadministration/archive/2011/04/29/microsoft-project-server-and-sharepoint-2007-and-2010-april-cu-2011-are-live.aspx .

Microsoft Project Server 2010: Get the Most for Your Organization, Now and for the Future white paper, diagram and videos

I am happy to announce the release of a white paper, diagram and videos produced by Advisicon, entitled Microsoft Project Server 2010: Get the Most for Your Organization, Now and for the Future . The white paper is targeted at decision makers and its purpose is to address some of the main factors for scalability, best practices, and opportunities for creating wins from the potential challenges often faced when implementing a solution such as Microsoft Project Server 2010 . The Visio diagram entitled Project 2010 Scalability Flowchart is designed to assist the different roles and perspectives in dealing with the challenges and the next steps to leveraging Project 2010 and Project Server 2010’s capabilities, depending on your entrance point for using the application.