Microsoft & Gaza Genocide

Microsoft engineer quits after 13 years; sends resignation email to thousands of employees: I can no longer work for a company that is… - The Times of India

Microsoft Restores Services to EU-Sanctioned Indian Refiner

From Russia Today 

"Microsoft has resumed providing critical digital services to Indian refiner Nayara Energy after the latter sued the US tech giant in the Delhi High Court.

Nayara, a company partly owned by Russia’s Rosneft, told the court on Monday that Microsoft had restricted its access to data, proprietary tools, and products on account of European Union sanctions.

“Microsoft is committed to supporting all its customers in India and worldwide, and has restored services for Nayara Energy,” the company said in a statement on Wednesday. “We are engaged in ongoing discussions with the European Union towards service continuity for the organization.”

The refiner said on Wednesday that its services had been restored. “Nayara Energy confirms that all Microsoft services critical to its operations have been fully restored, with no disruption to business continuity and data integrity remaining fully intact,” it said in a statement. “We acknowledge the prompt intervention of the Honorable Delhi High Court in facilitating the resolution of this matter. The petition was disposed of by the High Court in favour of Nayara Energy.”

The court granted the company the liberty to approach it again should similar grievances arise, according to the report.

Nayara had requested an interim injunction and the resumption of Microsoft’s services to protect its rights and ensure uninterrupted access to critical digital infrastructure. The company said in a statement on Tuesday that Microsoft’s decision set a “dangerous precedent for corporate overreach and raises serious concerns regarding its implications on India’s energy ecosystem.”

The refiner has meanwhile begun migrating to domestic digital service providers to ensure business continuity, according to a report in the Mint newspaper. It had initiated the legal action to obtain urgent relief while pursuing broader strategic transitions to alternative service providers, the report added.

Earlier this month, the EU imposed sanctions on the Vadinar refinery, which is controlled by Nayara, an Indo-Russian joint venture in which Rosneft holds a 49% stake.

The sanctions specifically target the oil sector and include a ban on importing refined petroleum products made from Russian crude. This marked the first time an Indian refiner has been subject to such measures."

My take on this is that one's access to one's own data and be-spoke applications that are hosted in a distributed Cloud Service, be it deployed on an offering from Amazon or Microsoft or Google or Oracle or any other NATO-domiciled entity could be denied at a moment's notice.

I think it advisable for businesses domiciled in non-NATO states to go back to the on-premises model.

You cannot run your business on the whims of foreigners and their electoral cycles.

This is reminiscent of such things as the weaponization of USD, SWIFT, WTO, Maritime insurance, GPS and Civil Aviation, which, in turn, led to the expansion and consolidation of BRICS, establishment of non-USD financial settlement infrastructures, bilateral and multilateral trading blocks, adoption of BeiDou/GLONASS, and such things as Sukhoi Superjet 100 etc.

I must say, the Euro-Americans are impressive in taking a wrecking ball to structures and relationships that they have spent hundreds of billions of USD over many decades to build. Clearly, they consider themselves to be the proverbial "Indispensable Man" - who is presently resting peacefully in a cemetery somewhere on this planet.

Windows 11 Local Account

https://www.xda-developers.com/windows-11-users-fight-back-against-microsoft-local-accounts/

MS Windows Total Recall

This very simple tool extracts and displays data from the Recall feature in Windows 11, providing an easy way to access information about your PC's activity snapshots.

GitHub - xaitax/TotalRecall: This tool extracts and displays data from the Recall feature in Windows 11, providing an easy way to access information about your PC's activity snapshots.

Free eBooks on Microsoft Azure

Free eBooks from our friends at Redmond on Azure:

Cloud Native Infrastructure with Azure (azureedge.net)

Learn Azure in a Month of Lunches (azureedge.net) 

Azure AD Connect

Evidently, to support Active Directory in Azure – for security and access control requirements – one  has to obtain, install, and configure the Azure AD Connect software on a Windows server (could be a VM) on one’s premises.

See please below the 2 technical notes:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/connect/active-directory-aadconnect-prerequisites

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/connect/active-directory-aadconnect-select-installation

This step requires someone that has global AD Admin. Rights – someone from IT Network Infrastructure.

This tool then acts as a proxy between the site-specific AD and the Azure AD.

Azure AD does not support multiple forests, there is no concept of Forests in Azure AD. It is completely flat.

I also read that the Azure AD Connect does not support LDAP.

While I think setting up a Web application within Azure is not overly complex, I think a full turn-key implementation is more complex as the functionality of the on premise IT Infrastructure needs to be investigated, mapped, and connected to Azure’s capabilities.

In case of multi-site organizations with many sites within the United States and also many sites externally in UK, Germany, Singapore, Angola – each with its own AD Forest – one has 2 choices available to oneself; either leverage Federation or flatten the organization into one Azure AD tenant.

AD Connect is pretty great if you use it for what it was designed for and it supports many different topologies. If it does not fit the customers requirements for some reason then,  "yes", federation using ADFS to Azure is another option.

More Reading:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/connect/active-directory-aadconnect

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/connect/active-directory-aadconnect-topologies

Free MS Windows VMs

Free MS Windows VM for Testing (the images expire in 90 days)

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/

Microsoft Road Map

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dotnet/2016/07/15/net-core-roadmap/

Microsoft Exchange Design Documents

Samples of Microsoft Exchange design documents to use as a starting point for a new On-Premises Exchange environment

1. https://roadchimp.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/roadchimp-sample-architectural-doc-adoc-v1-1.pdf
2. https://roadchimp.wordpress.com/
3. https://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/solutions/design_size_examples_exchange.pdf
4. https://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/exchange-2010-on-vmware-design-and-sizing-examples.pdf
5. https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/exchange/2015/10/12/the-exchange-2016-preferred-architecture/
6. https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa996719(v=exchg.150).aspx
7. https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/office/Exchange-2013-Server-Role-f8a61780
8. https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj619301(v=exchg.150).aspx
9. https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/exchange/2013/05/06/ask-the-perf-guy-sizing-exchange-2013-deployments/
10. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=40726
11. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36849
12. http://download.microsoft.com/download/4/A/C/4AC32FD3-220E-45DC-AA97-DBDBE19C15B2/Best_Practices_for_Virtualizing_and_Managing_Exchange_2013.pdf
13. http://www.msexchange.org/articles-tutorials/exchange-server-2013/planning-architecture/exchange-2013-sizing-cheat-sheet-part1.html
14. http://www.msexchange.org/articles-tutorials/exchange-server-2013/planning-architecture/exchange-2013-sizing-cheat-sheet-part2.html

These documents cover the areas of

1. Exchange High-level design
2. Exchange Detailed Design
3. Exchange Backup and Recovery Plan
4. Exchange Sizing

Windows PowerShell - Writing Windows Services in PowerShell

A very interesting article on PowerShell by my French colleague, Jean-François Larvoire, of HPE, France.

 

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/mt703436.aspx

Building Service Fabric Apps

Building Service Fabric Apps with VS2015

https://redmondmag.com/articles/2016/01/01/azure-service-fabric.aspx

Architecting Hybrid Cloud Environments

Good paper by MSFT to help understanding of different design approaches for hybrid cloud solutions using Azure@ TechNet Architecting Hybrid Cloud Environments    

This paper focuses on understanding the different design approaches for architecting hybrid cloud environments.

Microsoft Hololens Site

https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-hololens/en-us

3D Printing in Windows

3D Printing Support in Windows

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/bg183398.aspx

HomeOS from Microsoft

To simplify the management of technology and to simplify the development of applications in the home, Microsoft is developing an "operating system" for the home. 

Learn more about it @ http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/homeos/

Books for Windows Gadget Programming

These are 2 decent books on developing gadgets for Windows. Unfortunately, they do not cover Windows 7 but are still quite useful (with small modifications - see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd370867(VS.85).aspx ) for Windows 7 gadget development. They are:

1. "Creating Vista Gadgets: Using HTML, CSS and JavaScript with Examples in RSS, Ajax, ActiveX (COM) and Silverlight" by Rajesh Lal; Paperback; $25.49

2. "Professional Windows Vista Gadgets Programming (Programmer to Programmer)"Wei-Meng Lee; Paperback; $0.01

I liked Mr. Lee's book more since it contained detailed usable code.

Windows Azure Resoures

IaaS, PaaS, and the Windows Azure Platform @ http://www.keithpij.com/Portals/0/Downloads/IaaS,%20PaaS,%20and%20the%20Windows%20Azure%20Platform.pdf

Manager's Guide to Windows Azure, courtesy of Infosys @ http://www.infosys.com/offerings/cloud/resource-center/documents/primer-windows-azure.pdf

Windows Azure Developer Guidance Map @ http://blogs.msdn.com/cfs-filesystemfile.ashx/__key/CommunityServer-Blogs-Components-WeblogFiles/00-00-00-48-03/0211.Windows-Azure-Developer-Guidance-Map-_2D00_-v1.pdf

And SharePoint and Windows Azure Development Primer @
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=6d2dc556-650a-484f-8f52-f641967b42ea

Windows Azure Jump Start Training Videos@ http://microsoftph.com/download/Just_Released!_Free_In-depth_Windows_Azure_Training_Videos.pdf

And samples @ http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows-azure-code-samples.aspx

The Windows Azure Platform: Articles from the Trenches @ http://selfpacedazure.web.officelive.com/Documents/Windows%20Azure%20Platform%20Articles%20from%20the%20Trenches.pdf

Windows Azure™ Security Overview @ http://www.globalfoundationservices.com/security/documents/WindowsAzureSecurityOverview1_0Aug2010.pdf

Security Best Practices For Developing Windows Azure Applications @ http://www.globalfoundationservices.com/security/documents/SecurityBestPracticesWindowsAzureApps.pdf

Microsoft's Courier Digital Jurnal

http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/05/microsofts-courier-digital-journal-exclusive-pictures-and-de/?s=t5 (Courier was cancelled, April 29, 2010)

Free eBook and Code

http://www.charlespetzold.com/phone/

DLL-preloading Remote Attack

Learn the latest on the DLL-preloading remote attack @ http://blogs.technet.com/b/srd/archive/2010/08/31/an-update-on-the-dll-preloading-remote-attack-vector.aspx