Archive
Windows 7 & Facebook
This blog title is voluntarily cryptic or, better, does not explain that much. But, as I said, that’s the way it should be…
Microsoft Poland created a Windows 7 Facebook FanPage where customers and end users can give their opinions/comment on specific topics. Sort of a social forum. I’m sure you know Facebook that well to understand what that means…
In details, they created this page to support Windows 7 customers and let people know of the great potential of this OS.
Now, with the great help of MVPs Paula Januszkiewicz, Grzegorz Tworek and Lukasz Foks, customers have a ”full service package” they can rely on.
With their dedication and help, acting side by side with the Subsidiary, the Page got an astonishing 52.268 likes (as of today) and more than 300 comments in less than 4 months!
I love to share these “best practices”: please keep ‘em coming ! 
Link to: Windows Polska | Facebook
Microsoft MVP Award – January 2011 Awards !
I’m always happy to see new Microsoft MVPs coming onboard. No matter what the Country is, what language is, what the activities are, there’s one thing in common and I’ll never stop saying this out loud: PASSION.
Together with other Microsoft MVPs, the local subsidiaries and Microsoft Corporation, we identified top community contributors, within many different areas of expertise, who really deserved the MVP Award !
Particularly for the Region I represent (CEE & Italy), I would like to announce the newly awarded MVPs as of the 1st of January, 2011:
| Name | Technical Expertise | Country |
| Alvise Cervellati | Windows Expert-Consumer | Italy |
| Catalin Gheorghiu | Device Application Development | Romania |
| Darius Porowski | Virtual Machine | Poland |
| Fabrizio Volpe | Directory Services | Italy |
| George Andritsos | Exchange Server | Greece |
| George Varakis | Lync | Greece |
| Heiki Tahis | Windows Expert-IT Pro | Estonia |
| Joanna Vathis | Exchange Server | Greece |
| Marcin Borecki | Internet Explorer | Poland |
| Massimo Bonanni | Visual Basic | Italy |
| Matteo Pagani | Device Application Development | Italy |
| Michele Aponte | ASP.NET | Italy |
| Pawel Wilkosz | SQL Server | Poland |
| Philippos Panagiotidis | Office System | Greece |
| …. | Windows Azure | Italy |
| Sabrina Cosolo | Visual C# | Italy |
| Tomasz Onyszko | Enterprise Security | Poland |
| Tomaz Scavnicar | Internet Explorer | Slovenia |
| Ugo Sansone | Windows Live Messenger | Italy |
| Zoltan Zombory | Office365 | Hungary |
(as soon as they’ll publish the news on their blogs and/or on their MVP Profiles, I will add the names so you’ll get to know them 
).
Congratulations !! I think this is the best time of the year as you celebrated the New Year in the best possible way !!
And of course Congratulations to the re-awarded MVPs (and you know who you are !! 
)
BTW if you want to know more about the MVP Award Program, be sure to read our blog and follow me
ITPro Dev Connections 2010: recap
I already blogged about this but I thought it was worth mentioning the great success this event was:
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On the 27 and 28 of November, the Top Greek Technical Community Event took place at EKETE, delivered by the local “technical heroes” addressing all technical professionals. Sold out long before D-day and with a huge coverage in all new media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, forums and blogs) the conference was branded as the one delivered by experienced technical speakers with hands-on knowledge in the technologies presented and a deep understanding of the Greek market. Attendees came from the private and public sector, Microsoft customer and partners. |
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In a true community spirit, the two days, rich in content and full of energy, offered technical presentations from level 100 to 400 while giving everyone the opportunity to meet old friends, make new ones and create valuable connections! After the completion of the event, a super slick Silverlight application prepared by the MVPs will be show casing all presentations, where else… but in the cloud! Special Thanks from Microsoft Greece to Microsoft Speakers and especially Nasos Kladakis, and a Big ‘Congratulations’ to the local Microsoft MVPs, MCTs and Microsoft Student Partners (George Andritsos, George Birbilis, Antonis Chatzipavlis, George Capnias, Dimitris Gkanatsios, Vaggelis Kapsalakis, John Katsiotis, Panagiotis Kefalidis, Manos Kelaiditis, Aggelos Mpimpoudis, Philippos Panayiotidis, Konstantinos Pantos, Yiannis Panagopoulos, Dimitris Papadimitriou, Chris Spanougakis, Andreas Tsouchlaris, George Varakis) for orchestrating this amazing experience! |
And some numbers:
2 days, 400 attendees (260 IT pros + 140 Devs), 31 speakers + 20 volunteers , 29 presentations, 4 parallel tracks with IT Pros & Devs content, 1 Xbox - Kinect play area, and some Sponsor that were present at the event (including Xerox and Dell)
To me, this is a great example on how Microsoft can easily collaborate with the local communities and User Groups to make successful events so congratulations again !
Sinergija 10 & more !
I took some time this morning to recap on the recent event in which I had the pleasure to participate. It was in Belgrade, Serbia, and I already talked about the previous one in this post.
Sinergija is one of the most important event in the Balkans, together with some other events. ITPros and Developers had the chance to interact with each other and meet a lot of Microsoft folks and international speakers sharing their experiences on Microsoft products.
Also, this year Sinergija was at it 10th anniversary, which made the event even more important.
My colleague and friend Borko Kovacevic wrote some notes regarding the event which I guess it’s nice to share with you. Sinergija 10 gathered more than 1500 people on each of five days of the conference, and more than 3000 people on all Sinergija related events!
Some numbers:
5 days
150 technical presentations
30 business presentations
30 conference partner
1500 people on Technical Conference
700 people on Business Summits
150 speakers
80 IT Influencers from all over CEE
100 Press Representatives
150 Sinergija staff members
120 MS employees
1.500 people on Sinergija Party
1000 visitors of gaming and EXPO events per day
I specifically highlighted the Influencer n° as, together with the CEE HQ, we organized an Influencer Summit inside the event, where MVPs, Regional Directors, Student Partners and “Influencers” could meet and interact with us for a full day.
There were a lot of people who I personally met during other events and I have to tell how much I appreciated all the discussions and talks with them, representing almost 15 Countries in Central and Eastern Europe. MVPs from Estonia, Latvia, Russia, Poland, Croatia, Republic of Macedonia (F.Y.R.O.), Bosnia, Bulgaria, Romania, I can’t even mention all the people that was there. We also had Tomislav Bronzin (Vice President INETA Europe) and Bernardin Katic (Director at Large) who represented INETA Europe and GITCA who were available for discussing community and User Group issues and requests. Even the local General Manager from Microsoft Serbia came and make a short speech during our event which I think was fantastic !
In the evening, the organizers gathered speakers and Influencers for a dinner on a boat. We had a bus talking us from the hotel to the restaurant and the venue was really super ! We had the chance to talk about different topics but, fore and foremost, having all these Countries represented for me was a great experience (it’s always is).
There are several anecdotes I would like to share: on a personal note, I really appreciated the chat I had with MVP Bojan Jovicic about social skills (thank you for your advices !!)
And I’d also like to ad we had a great time talking about communities with Valdis Iljuconoks (nominated as the Official CEE MVP Photographer 
) and Maciej Pilecki !
There are several pieces of experiences I grab with myself after the event. One in particular, which is nothing new but worth to mention is:
“Strategies are important, but without relationships they are gonna fail”
See you soon !
New security resource for Windows 7
Microsoft Solution Accelerators—the team that brought you the Security Compliance Manager tool—has just released the latest addition to their collection of free security tools and guidance: a new setting pack for Windows 7.
The setting pack, in combination with the Windows 7 Security Baseline and the Security Compliance Manager tool, will enable you to define baselines that include settings outside the scope of the security baselines from Microsoft. You can use this new resource to define custom baselines, meet business-critical needs, and elevate the security of Windows 7.
What’s a setting pack?
Here’s the story, straight from the development team: “Since the release of the Security Compliance Manager tool, one of the most frequent requests has been to add all of the available Group Policy settings to the Microsoft-recommended baselines so that they can be accessed through the tool. While our baselines include hundreds of settings, there are hundreds of additional settings available in Group Policy. In response to this request, the team has created setting packs. The setting packs include the basic information required by the Security Compliance Manager tool to define custom baselines that you can use to create GPO backups, DCM configuration packs, and SCAP content. This is a temporary solution to address this request. A future version of the tool will provide the capability to add the settings customers need to their baseline without using a setting pack”.
How can I download the setting pack for Windows 7?
The new Windows 7 setting pack, and the previously released Windows 7 Security Baseline, are available to use with the Security Compliance Manager tool.
New users can access this setting pack by first visiting the Microsoft Download Center to download the Security Compliance Manager tool.
Existing users can access the setting pack in the tool by clicking the Tools menu, and then clicking Check for Baselines.
Next steps
To learn more about the new setting pack for Windows 7, visit the TechNet Library.
To get more information about the Security Compliance Manager tool, including new security baselines for Windows Server 2008 R2 and Office 2010, visit the SCM TechNet Library page.
Questions? Feedback? Tell it to the development team
How can I learn more about Solution Accelerators?
The Security Compliance Manager works with the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit and the Microsoft Deployment Toolkit (MDT) to help you plan, securely deploy, and manage new Microsoft technologies—easier, faster, and at less cost. Learn more about these and other resources from Microsoft Solution Accelerators.
Announcing newly Awarded Microsoft MVPs – October 2010
This is another exciting quarter for my Company, the Communities and the Microsoft MVPs. New products coming up with new exciting features, new product launches and Community Tours, new topics to discuss in the forums and, most of all, new MVPs onboard 
!
And I’m happy to announce that we Awarded 13 new Microsoft MVPs in some of the Countries I represent as a Community manager:
| MVP | Country | Technical Expertise |
| Adam Granicz | Hungary | Visual C# |
| Daniel Potyrala | Poland | Windows Desktop Experience |
| Domagoj Pavlešić | Croatia | Silverlight |
| Domantas Jovaišas | Lithuania | ASP/ASP.NET |
| Efran Cobisi | Italy | PowerShell |
| Beppe Platania | Italy | Windows Embedded |
| Jacek Światowiak | Poland | Forefront |
| Lukasz Grala | Poland | SQL Server |
| Renato Marzaro | Italy | Visual Basic |
| Senad Zeco | Slovenia | Windows Desktop Experience |
| Sergio Govoni | Italy | SQL Server |
| Tomica Kaniski | Croatia | Management Infrastructure |
| Toni Frankola | Croatia | SharePoint Services |
Congratulations for this achievement: I can’t wait to start collaborating with you moving forward. And of course Congratulations to the re-awarded MVPs !
I’m also proud to recognize that, among the Region, we have now 2 Windows Azure MVPs so congrats to you guys too !!
I know it’s hard to keep that status active, but this means your passion to help others and your community engagement is still present in you and I’m honored to be part of this great group !!
If you want to know more about the MVP Award Program, be sure to read our blog and follow me if you want to 
ITPro Dev Connections 2010 (Greece)
On 27 and 28th of November, 2 of the the biggest local Communities and User Groups (Autoexec.gr and DotNetZone.gr) organized a 2 days event for both ITPros and Developers.
As you can see from the agenda, there are 2 main tracks and 2 side tracks to accommodate both audiences, plus some time in which Microsoft MVPs, active community members and partners will interact with the attendees and reply to any technical questions they may have.
Looking at the speakers, I’m positively impressed by the quality and professionalism of these guys I had the pleasure to meet in person:
Chris Spanougakis, Andreas Tsouchlaris, Vangelis Kapsalakis, Antonios Chatzipavlis, George Capnias, Manos Kelaiditis, Kostas Pantos, Dimitris Papadimitriou, Dimitrios Gkanatsios, Panagiotis Kefalidis and many other speakers.
If you live in Greece, you probably know them and their technical skills so you definitely can’t miss this great event ! 
Link (in Greek): ITPro Dev Connections 2010
Microsoft Days 2010 | Hlavní stránka
Microsoft Days 2010 will take place on 14-15th of September in Prague.
This is the biggest event ever organized in Czech Republic by Microsoft merging together conferences for IT Professionals, Developers and Partners.
The Agenda is pretty huge, covering topics like Azure, Online Services, Cloud Computing, Web Platform and other Client/Server/Developer/Dynamics content.
And, based on that, it’s split into two separate tracks – Technical (for IT Professionals and Developers) and Business part for Microsoft Partners.
Of course the Microsoft MVP Award Program will be very well represented thanks to the participation of 7 MVPs as speakers and another 6 MVPs in the Ask The Experts booth.
Martin Pavlis (Exchange), Miroslav Knotek (Consumer Security), Kamil Jurik (SharePoint Server), Petr Kosec (System Center Operations Manager), Michal Valasek (ASP/ASP .NET), Ondrej Vysek (Setup & Deployment), Martin Zugec (PowerShell) as well as the MVPs who will be present at the ATE Booth like Miroslav Pragl (Consumer Security), Jan Pilar (Windows Desktop Experience), Igor Vit (Visual FoxPro), Igor Stanek (ASP/ASP .NET), Jarda Jirava (Client App Dev) and Pavel Repa (System Center Operations Manager). It’s a long list ! 
Furthermore, the XBOX 360 Kinect will also be officially announced here !!
Link (in Czech): Microsoft Days 2010 | Hlavní stránka
Announcing the newly Awarded Microsoft MVPs – July 2010
I’m always happy to see new Microsoft MVPs coming onboard. No matter what the Country is, what language is, what the activities are, there’s one thing in common and I’ll never stop saying this out loud: PASSION.
We found, together with all the local subsidiaries I’m in touch with, exceptional Community Leaders in different areas that, for what they voluntarily did in their spare time, really deserved the Award.
And I’m happy to announce that we Awarded 8 new Microsoft MVPs in the Countries I’m responsible for:
| Name | Country | Technical Expertise |
| Giuseppe Marchi | Italy | SharePoint Server |
| Kuba Skalbania | Poland | Dynamics CRM |
| Lukas Kubis | Czech Republic | Connected System Developer |
| Mladen Prajdic | Slovenia | SQL Server |
| ….. | Czech Republic | Setup & Deployment |
| Silvio Sagovac | Croatia | Windows Desktop Experience |
| Tobiasz Koprowski | Poland | SQL Server |
| Tomas Dabasinskas | Lithuania | Windows Desktop Experience |
(you’ll see the names as they publish this news on their blogs and on their MVP Profiles).
Congratulations to y’all: I can’t wait to start collaborating with you !! And of course Congratulations to the re-awarded MVPs (and you know who you are !! 
)
BTW, if you want to know more about the MVP Award Program, be sure to read our blog and follow me 
Microsoft Technology Summit 2009
Around 3000 people expect including almost 600 people from the communities.
These are some of the numbers of the most important Microsoft Conference happening in Warsaw on September 29-30: the Microsoft Technology Summit 2009 !
MTS 2009 is Poland’s largest technology conference aimed at IT professionals, developers, and enthusiasts of new technologies.
Highlighting MVPs Kimberly Tripp, Grzegorz Tworek, Paweł Pławiak, Jacek Doktór, Sebastian Wilczewski, Bartosz Pampuch, Marlon Grech and many other International colleagues and IT professionals, the 2 days will be differentiated in 13 different areas:
Thus touching a lot of different Microsoft technologies and products: from Visual Studio 2010 to the System Center family, from Exchange 2010 to Windows 7 etc etc…
Even if my Polish is almost at a scholar level, I’ll definitely be there !!
Link to: Microsoft Technology Summit 2009 | 29-30 września 2009 | PKiN Warszawa
Windows Live Messenger on Windows7
As far as I installed Windows 7 Ultimate on my laptop (and, again, I strongly recommend to download it and install it: you still have some time before the beta closes!) one of the minor issues I experienced was with the use of the latest Windows Live Messenger (one of the product included in the Windows Live Essentials suite).
As Windows 7 handles taskbar and notification area icons in a different way, the Windows Live Messenger thumbnail preview, due to compatibility requirements, shows two confusing Messenger’s windows.
It’s very easy to workaround on this and show the icon in the Notification area.
- Close the application
- Go to Windows Live Messenger Properties
- check the “Run this program in compatibility mode for” and select “Windows Vista” from the drop-down list
If you need to set this for all users, click on the “Change settings for all user” button
And then you’ll see your IM back to where it was !
Tags: Windows 7 Beta Tweaks Windows Live
How to run Windows 7 on a Virtual machine
As many of us are really excited to run & see Windows 7 in action,
I found this very useful step-by-step guide made by a colleague (Brian Keller)
Things to keep in mind:
- Install SP1 on Virtual PC 2007
- Use Windows Vista as the virtual OS
- Dedicate half of your physical ram for your virtual machine
Read the full story here & enjoy !
Tags: Windows 7 Virtual PC Beta Tweaks
about.me
Alessandro Teglia
EMEA Regional Manager @Microsoft
Social. Connected. Digital Enthusiast. Online & Offline Community Influencer & Follower. Avid audio book reader, rookie Photographer, History fan. Addicted to #WindowsPhone... #Branding is my Passion
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