Out now: Microsoft Vista for IT Security Professionals

business, personal, security, technology / /

Microsoft Vista for IT Security Professionals is designed for the professional system administrators who need to securely deploy Microsoft Vista in their networks. Readers will not only learn about the new security features of Vista, but they will learn how to safely integrate Vista with their existing wired and wireless network infrastructure and safely deploy with their existing applications and databases. The book begins with a discussion of Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing Initiative and Vista’s development cycle, which was like none other in Microsoft’s history. Expert authors will separate the hype from the reality of Vista’s preparedness to withstand the 24 x 7 attacks it will face from malicious attackers as the world’s #1 desktop operating system. The book has a companion CD which contains hundreds of working scripts and utilities to help administrators secure their environments.

This book is written for intermediate to advanced System administrators managing Microsoft networks who are deploying Microsoft’s new flagship desktop operating system: Vista. This book is appropriate for system administrators managing small networks of fewer than 10 machines up to enterprise-class networks with tens of thousands of systems. This book is also appropriate for readers preparing for the Microsoft exam MCDST 70-620.

I contributed two appendices to this book:

  • Appendix A: Microsoft Vista: The International Community
  • Appendix B: Changes to the Vista EULA

Appendix A, “Microsoft Vista: The International Community”, was about Microsoft’s legal troubles in Europe and Asia, and the changes the company had to make to Vista to accommodate those governments. Appendix B, “Changes to the Vista EULA”, explained that the EULA in Vista is even worse than that found in XP, which was worse than any previous EULA. In other words, Vista has a problematic EULA that users need to know about before they buy the OS.

Read excerpts: Front Matter (350 KB PDF) and Chapter 1: Microsoft Vista: An Overview (760 KB PDF). You can flip through the entire book, although you’re limited to the total number of pages you can view (but it’s a pretty high number, like 50 or so).

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1 Henry VI: Lucy lists Talbot’s titles

language & literature, word of the day / /

From William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, part 1 (IV: 7):

LUCY:

But where’s the great Alcides of the field,
Valiant Lord Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury,
Created, for his rare success in arms,
Great Earl of Washford, Waterford and Valence;
Lord Talbot of Goodrig and Urchinfield,
Lord Strange of Blackmere, Lord Verdun of Alton,
Lord Cromwell of Wingfield, Lord Furnival of Sheffield,
The thrice-victorious Lord of Falconbridge;
Knight of the noble order of Saint George,
Worthy Saint Michael and the Golden Fleece;
Great marshal to Henry the Sixth
Of all his wars within the realm of France?

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Talbot describes his son’s valiant death

language & literature / /

From William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, part 1 (IV: 7):

TALBOT:

Where is my other life? mine own is gone;
O, where’s young Talbot? where is valiant John?
Triumphant death, smear’d with captivity,
Young Talbot’s valour makes me smile at thee:
When he perceived me shrink and on my knee,
His bloody sword he brandish’d over me,
And, like a hungry lion, did commence
Rough deeds of rage and stern impatience;
But when my angry guardant stood alone,
Tendering my ruin and assail’d of none,
Dizzy-eyed fury and great rage of heart
Suddenly made him from my side to start
Into the clustering battle of the French;
And in that sea of blood my boy did drench
His over-mounting spirit, and there died,
My Icarus, my blossom, in his pride.

…
Come, come and lay him in his father’s arms:
My spirit can no longer bear these harms.
Soldiers, adieu! I have what I would have,
Now my old arms are young John Talbot’s grave.

Dies

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1 Henry VI: Talbot’s deer metaphor

language & literature / /

From William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, part 1 (IV: 2):

TALBOT:

He fables not; I hear the enemy:
Out, some light horsemen, and peruse their wings.
O, negligent and heedless discipline!
How are we park’d and bounded in a pale,
A little herd of England’s timorous deer,
Mazed with a yelping kennel of French curs!
If we be English deer, be then in blood;
Not rascal-like, to fall down with a pinch,
But rather, moody-mad and desperate stags,
Turn on the bloody hounds with heads of steel
And make the cowards stand aloof at bay:
Sell every man his life as dear as mine,
And they shall find dear deer of us, my friends.
God and Saint George, Talbot and England’s right,
Prosper our colours in this dangerous fight!

(Talbot uses a metaphor comparing the encircled English to deer who will fight back against the dogs that threaten them.)

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1 Henry VI: Talbot threatens Bourdeaux with destruction unless it capitulates

language & literature / /

From William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, part 1 (IV: 2):

TALBOT:

English John Talbot, captains, calls you forth,
Servant in arms to Harry King of England;
And thus he would: Open your city gates;
Be humble to us; call my sovereign yours,
And do him homage as obedient subjects;
And I’ll withdraw me and my bloody power:
But, if you frown upon this proffer’d peace,
You tempt the fury of my three attendants,
Lean famine, quartering steel, and climbing fire;
Who in a moment even with the earth
Shall lay your stately and air-braving towers,
If you forsake the offer of their love.

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1 Henry VI: division in the English court

language & literature / /

From William Shakespeare’s Henry VI, part 1 (IV: 1):

EXETER:

Well didst thou, Richard, to suppress thy voice;
For, had the passions of thy heart burst out,
I fear we should have seen decipher’d there
More rancorous spite, more furious raging broils,
Than yet can be imagined or supposed.
But howsoe’er, no simple man that sees
This jarring discord of nobility,
This shouldering of each other in the court,
This factious bandying of their favourites,
But that it doth presage some ill event.
‘Tis much when sceptres are in children’s hands;
But more when envy breeds unkind division;
There comes the rain, there begins confusion.

Exeter foresees the divisions in the English court & the problems it will cause the country.

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