Blogs

Blogs are a great way to feed your understanding of different Windows Server 2008 technologies and features. Here’s a short list of blogs by product teams and experts at Microsoft. Because they’re insiders, they obviously know what they’re talking about-at least we hope so! The following blogs are listed in no particular order. Some of them deal specifically with Windows Server 2008, while others cover related technology areas like networking or performance. Here you go:

Group Policy Team Blog, which can be found at http://blogs.technet.com/grouppolicy/default.aspx , has a lot of helpful articles on how Group Policy works in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.

Routing and Remote Access Blog, found at http://blogs.technet.com/rrasblog/default.aspx, includes some tips and insights concerning how to use RRAS for VPN/dial-up scenarios in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008.

Windows PowerShell is a blog about (duh) Windows PowerShell, posted by the (you guessed it) Windows PowerShell team at Microsoft. Because PowerShell is going to be included in Windows Server 2008, you need to start learning about this fantastic command-line management platform. So go to http://blogs.msdn.com/powershell/default.aspx right now and get cracking! By the way, I love blogs that have creative titles like this.

Ask The Performance Team is where you should point your newsreader to if you want to (smile) ask the Windows Performance Team anything about Windows Longhorn Server or Windows Vista performance issues. The blog can be found at http://blogs.technet.com/askperf/default.aspx.

Server Core is another aptly (if boringly) named blog, but the content you’ll find there is anything but boring. Andrew Mason, a Program Manager who has worked on developing the Windows server core installation option of Windows Server 2008, has posted a series of terrific articles that will get you deep inside how to configure and manage a server running the Windows server core installation option. Check out this blog at http://blogs.technet.com/ server_core.

Michael Howard’s Web Log is subtitled, “A Simple Software Security Guy at Microsoft!” If you’re looking for blog content on the security end of things, this is a good place to begin. Michael’s blog is at http://blogs.msdn.com/michael_howard/default.aspx.

Windows Server Division Weblog is a good blog whose feed you can subscribe to if you want to get general announcements and participate in discussions concerning Windows Server 2008 and other Microsoft server platforms and products. This blog can be found at http://blogs.technet.com/windowsserver/default.aspx.

Adventures in Server Land is a blog by Jason Olson, a Technical Evangelist and member of the Developer and Platform Evangelism team. Jason’s blog can be found athttp://blogs.msdn.com/jolson/about.aspx. He bills his blog as, “The adventures and life of a Technical Evangelist as he digs through the latest core technologies in Longhorn Server.”

ScottGu’s Blog is subtitled with, “Scott Guthrie lives in Seattle and builds a few products for Microsoft.” Scott is more than that, however-he’s a General Manager within the Microsoft Developer Division and runs the development teams that build IIS 7.0, the common language runtime (CLR), the .NET Compact Framework, ASP.NET/Atlas, the Windows Presentation Foundation, and more. So if you’re interested in any of these technologies and how they apply to Windows Server 2008, check out his blog at http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/default.aspx.

Terminal Services Team Blog is the starting place if you’re interested in anything that has to do with Terminal Services in Windows Server 2008. Lots of excellent stuff here. Check it out at http://blogs.msdn.com/ts/default.aspx.

The Filing Cabinet is subtitled as, “An IT Pro blog about file services and storage features in Windows Server, Windows XP, and Windows Vista.” I expect the blog will also include similar content concerning Windows Server 2008 by the time you’re reading this. You can find this blog at http://blogs.technet.com/filecab/default.aspx.

Windows Core Networking is subtitled, “Windows Core Networking APIs and technologies such as Winsock, TCP/IP stack, WFP, IPsec, IPv6, WSK, WinINet, Http.sys, WinHttp, QoS, and System.Net.” Great subtitle! It’s a good place to feed from if you want to learn more about networking in Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. Just go to http://blogs.msdn.com/ wndp/default.aspx.

Windows Virtualization Team Blog is a blog by John Howard, a Program Manager for Windows Virtualization. If you want to keep watch over how Windows Server Virtualization is developing, point your newsreader to http://blogs.technet.com/virtualization/default.aspx.

Avi's Corner, found at http://avibm.spaces.live.com/default.aspx?_c02_owner=1, is a blog by AviBen-Menahem, a Program Manager for Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS).

Blogs by MVPs

Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) are also avid bloggers, generally, and here are two of them who blog frequently about features of Windows Server 2008:

Directory Services/Active Directory is a blog by Ulf B. Simon-Weidner, an MVP who works as a consultant for Microsoft platforms at major companies in Germany. Ulf has a lot of great insights to share, and you can find his blog at http://msmvps.com/blogs/ulfbsimonweidner/ default.aspx.

Steve Schofield Weblog is a blog by IIS MVP Steve Schofield. You’ll find tons of interesting stuff there about IIS 7. The URL for this blog is http://weblogs.asp.net/steveschofield/default.aspx.

You can find many more blogs by MVPs at http://msmvps.com/blogs/Bloggers.aspx. I’m sure a lot of them deal from time to time with various aspects of Windows Server 2008, but I’ve gotta get this book finished in time for TechEd, so let’s move on.