The Oregon Computer Consultants Association will be holding their monthly meeting the Tuesday before Halloween.  This month the subject will be Windows Sharepoint services, which a lot of members have been asking about.

Earlier in the month I applied to the beta program for the Microsoft Webmaster portal when I first heard it was coming out, and yesterday, I finally received my invitation for registration.

You know the way your Aunt or neighbor forwards you those jokes in e-mails where you can see everybody elses e-mail address? Well imagine my surprise when I got my e-mail, and there in the “to” field was everyone that Microsoft they sent this message to.

This month’s Oregon Computer Consultant Association meeting is tomorrow night, and were having a presentation about reducing e-mail clutter that promises to be enlightening. The subjects are e-mail reduction in Outlook, and a second part about using the new Windows Home Server product.

For some reason I decided that today was a good day to install my Office 2007, which I have had since February. My primary reason for doing so were some of the good things I’ve seen and heard about Excel 2007.

What an aggravating two days this has been for many people, thanks to a Microsoft Update. I got phone calls or e-mails from several different people about the same issues I had, due to yesterday morning’s update.

Here’s a “workaround” for your problem, if it was caused by Windows Updates this Wednesday, June 13th, 2007

Thanks to a commenter on this blog, we now know there’s a workaround for this issue. Still, why would Microsoft not send us full versions?

Now I can go buy a new hard drive, then do a clean install of Windows Vista from an upgrade disk

I rarely reboot my PC and leave it run 24/7. It seems like whenever I can tell need a reboot, I’m too busy to take the time.

I have 4 gigs of ram on a dual core Intel CPU, but I have literally dozens of tasks or windows open at any given time.

I’ve been a Microsoft Action Pack subscriber for  year, and usually had my software upgraded as soon as possible after release. As a computer consultant, I always had to rely on the latest software, and I’ve kept up my subscription for years.
Finally, yesterday, my Windows Vista and Office 2007 arrived . However, I’m less than enthusiastic about not only taking the time to install it all, but about the potential problems I’ll encounter.

When you think about the Microsoft search platform, do you call it “MSN”, or “Microsoft” or “Live”?
When Microsoft first began development of their new search engine, MSN was not utilizing it yet for searches. When discussing any examples of Microsoft search, it was necessary to call it “Live” to distinguish between it and the old MSN.  You couldn’t accurately refer to Microsoft search without clarifying whether you meant MSN or Live.

Google penalizes websites for blatant link farming and other unsavory tactics, but it looks like Microsoft has taken it a step further.

By now, everyone is supposed to know that unrelated links can’t help you, but now Microsoft Search (a.k.a. Live.com) may actually be officially BANNING websites that engage in this practice.
According to this post Barry Schwartz (a.k.a. Rusty Brick) reported that certain webmasters were receiving this letter from Live.com -

MSN has a new search operator that allows you to see all the domains that any given site is linking out to.

From the days when I owned a computer store in Portland Oregon, I’m still a Microsoft partner, and it was past my renewal.

While logged in to the Microsoft partner site, I attempt a renewal, and here’s the message I get…