Archive for June, 2007

Hi again, just recently returned from MS TechEd in Orlando, oh it was HOT!

It was great to get a chance to meet some customers and partners face to face and discuss what’s happening at a more granular level today in the enterprise.  The issues they face are of course at the heart of what we’re providing solutions for and allows us to reprioritize where needed to make sure we’re addressing things daily as that’s how fast we see things happening at the moment, as I know others do as well. Oh the day of the boot sector infector are long behind us and the pace at which we all must move now is at lightning speed, ya gotta love it!

Some of the important questions and issues we discussed included things like Rootkit technology, naming conventions and the overall breadth of the problem today around spyware and what next generation of threats would we see.

In addition, there were many concerns about the never ending Bot problem and of course how the Microsoft Malware Protection Center will continue to grow to support customers globally.

My commitment to them was to return in some way shape or form and update them on our progress in these areas through this blog and next year at TechED

The customers that attended the presentation seemed a bit overwhelmed by the data we put together in our last Security Intelligence Report.< ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

When I returned back to Redmond, one of the first things I did was go to the TechNet recording studios and record a Security Intelligence Report webcast.  If you don’t have the time to read the full report (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=AF816E28-533F-4970-9A49-E35DC3F26CFE&displaylang=en ) this webcast is an easy way to hear about all the findings in the report and come up to speed on the malware trends we have been observing.

Check it out! 

http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032340085&Culture=en-US

There is more to come…stay tuned.

Vinny Gullotto

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One of the great things about RSS is that it's being used all over the world in countless ways. Millions of sites publish RSS feeds and hundreds of products consume those same feeds. The downside of this popularity, however, is that with that many implementations, there's bound to be some variance in how and when sites implement the specification. This can make it tricky for publishers and consumers to figure out how to implement some of the less-frequently-used features of the specification.

For the past few years, the RSS Advisory Board and the many hard-working and dedicated people on the RSS-public mailing list have been working hard to document how popular readers and services have implemented the specification, with the goal of helping publishers and consumers understand how best to get what they want.

The board recently published another draft (version 1.20) of the RSS 2.0 Best Practices Profile, which includes information on how various consumers use the <ttl> element, as well how to implement some commonly-used RSS extensions (like the Dublin Core and Slash extensions).

The profile is still evolving, so, if you're interested in getting involved, the best place to start is on the RSS-public mailing list. If you're implementing a new RSS publishing or consuming application, a quick glance at the profile would definitely help.

- Sean