February2009February 2009

Microsoft Office:Business Intelligence with SharePoint and Excel

A good business intelligence strategy can both streamline business processes and boost productivity and profit. And rolling out a solution with tools that you already have may be easier than you think. Find out how you can integrate Microsoft Office Excel and Excel Services with SharePoint to create a business intelligence solution.A good business intelligence strategy can both streamline business processes and boost productivity and profit. And rolling out a solution with tools that you already have may be easier than you think. Find out how you can integrate Microsoft Office Excel and Excel Services with SharePoint to create business intelligence solution. Ben Curry and Bill English with the Microsoft SharePoint teams

SQL Server:Understanding Logging and Recovery in SQL Server

Logging and recovery are critical parts of SQL Server, but they are often poorly understood. Paul Randal gives an overview of how the logging and recovery features work in SQL Server and explains the transaction log and recovery models to help you maintain a better database. Paul S. Randal

Virtualization:Automating Virtual Machine Host Deployment

Hyper-V-based environments are relatively easy to automate, making it a trivial task to deploy and redeploy entire test environments with just a few clicks. Here’s what you need to know to start deploying Hyper-V servers, virtual machines, guest operating systems, and server applications with no need for administrator interaction. Fergus Strachan

Microsoft Dynamics:Deploying Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4.0

CRM is not just a sales and marketing management tool. Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a scalable, enterprise-class system that when appropriately configured and deployed can handle small teams, enterprise-wide solutions and everything in between. Here is a guide to planning the right solution for your environment. Aaron Elder

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb978519(v=msdn.10)
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc135917(v=msdn.10)

Columns

From the Editor:Transform Information into Intelligence
Joshua Hoffman
Letters:Readers Speak Out
Toolbox:New Products for IT Pros
Greg Steen discusses using HTTP Debugger Pro to view and analyze HTTP data, using switcher to switch between applications, launching your applications with RocketDock, backing up your databases with SQLsafe, and performing fast recoveries with ReplayRA.Greg Steen
SQL Q&A:Backup Compression, Client Redirection with Mirroring, and More
Should you enable Backup Compression? How can you avoid dropped application connections during a failover? Paul Randal answers these questions and more in the latest installment of SQL Q&A.Paul S. Randal
Utility Spotlight:Web Page Error Toolkit
Discover how you can use the free Web Page Error Toolkit from Microsoft to replace the generic 404 page with a custom error pages, providing useful details for site visitors who bump into trouble.Lance Whitney
Utility Spotlight:Visual Round Trip Analyzer
The Visual Round-trip Analyzer utility can help you to discover the reasons why your Web pages may be slow to load, and what you can do to make the pages load faster.Jim Pierson
Inside SharePoint:Maintaining Security Account Credentials
In the first part of a two-part series on the standard procedures and tools for maintaining SharePoint security accounts, Pav Cherny explores the architectural details and the complicated process of accomplishing password changes.Pav Cherny
Windows PowerShell:Best Inventory Tool Ever!
In the past few installments of the Windows PowerShell column, Don Jones has been demonstrating how to develop a Windows PowerShell-based inventory tool. In this installment, Don brings it all together into a very powerful, full-featured tool, and offers some guidance on customizing the tool for your own needs.Don Jones
Geek of All Trades:Making Sense of Server Core
In the world of IT publications, the needs of the jack-of-all-trades IT professionals tend to be neglected. Do you work in a small environment where you are responsible for managing everything from network routing to changing toner cartridges? If so, this new column is dedicated to you. In this first installment, Greg Shields discusses using Windows Server 2008 Server Core in a small environment.Greg Shields
Hey, Scripting Guy!:Browsing Active Directory
This installment clears up some confusion over Active Directory Browser, ADSI Scriptomatic, and browsing Active Directory. And in doing so, the Scripting Guy creates a Windows PowerShell script that will allow you to browse the Active Directory schema.The Microsoft Scripting Guys
Security Watch:Malware Inspection at the Perimeter
Learn how to use the Malware Inspection feature of the Microsoft Forefront Threat Management Gateway to mitigate threats at your perimeter.Yuri Diogenes, Mohit Saxena, and Jim Harrison
Field Notes:IT’s Punctuated Equilibrium
What does change really mean in the world of IT? Romi Mahajan discusses three theories of change, offering a historical perspective on how IT has evolved and what we can expect to experience in the near future.Romi Mahajan
Field Notes:Media and the Future of Content
While new technologies and media can facilitiate the speed and breadth of content, it does not impact impact the meaning or the message.Romi Mahajan
Windows Confidential:The Case of the Disappearing Cursor
Have you ever noticed that the cursor blinks when you take a screen capture? Raymond Chen explains why.Raymond Chen