MOSS 2007 and Virtual Development Environment Comparison

Over on Todd Baginski’s blog, he recently conducted a thorough comparison of using Microsoft’s Virtual Server 2005 R2 vs. VMWare’s VMServer 1.01 product for MOSS 2007 development. The results were surprising, with VMWare winning on common tasks by a total of 38%. Since both products are free at this time, it seems that VMWare’s solution is the way to go right now. I shouldn’t be as surprised, since VMWare has been in the virtualization game for a long time, but the time differences are amazing nonetheless. You can read more over on Todd’s blog, including test results, graphs, and reactions.

MOSS-Oriented Blogs

Keeping on the topic of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, here is a list of some of the blogs that discuss MOSS 2007 that I frequent:

 The first three sites I recommend, especially Michael’s site.  His passion for Microsoft and SharePoint is unparrallelled 🙂

MASPCM – Mid Atlantic States Portals, Collaboration, and Multimedia Group

GSDIWC – Greater Southeast District Information Worker Community

MikeysGBlog – Michael Gannotti’s Blog

 

The list below are other sites that I visit that contain some great information, although I do not frequent them as much.

Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog

Enterprise Content Management Team Blog

Shane Perran’s SharePoint Customization Blog

The IW Center

Amanda Murphy’s List of SharePoint Learning Resources

Ray Ranson – Run on WSS v3

 

I really need to add “blogroll” functionality to this MovableType site, and keep some of these links close to the top.

Official XBR2 Threads on AVSForum

THE site I go to for AV talk is AVSForum.  The discussions there include every aspect of AV, from displays to media, spin-off forums for satellite and TiVo, and even includes discusssion (with construction pictures!) of dedicated home theater installs that look simply amazing.

When doing research on my TV purchase, I relied heavily on information from this forum, as well as information in these 3 specific threads.

First is the Official 40″, 46″ XBR2, XBR3 LCD Thread.  First off, let me warn you, as of this posting the thread is now over 100 pages long.  It starts with the original press release and MSRP of the unit, and then continues through opinions, good, bad, problems, etc.

Next is the Official Sony 40″, 46″ XBR2, XBR3 Owners Thread.  This is now about 20 pages (and growing) of posts from those that own the unit, as well as contains picture settings and tests with specific equipment.  More recently some of the LCD thread chatter has spilled over into the owners thread, but primarily the thread consists of owners.

And last but not least is the Sony BRAVIA KDL46XBR2 – User Settings/Calibration Thread.  This is a recent thread to capture all of the settings posted by users in the first 2 threads into one place.  It’s fairly small at this point, but should grow like the other threads.

 

I’m still dialing in my new TV, and am working on finding the most streamlined setup to my newly created DVR mess, with 1 Series2 TiVo, 1 Media Center Edition 2005 PC, and 1 Motorola 6412 HD Cable Box / DVR.  More on that to follow…

Sony KDL46XBR2

With our new living room setup in the house, our 27″ Proscan CRT TV didn’t cut the mustard anymore, and we upgraded:

 

 

Here’s how it looks like in the room:

Sony KDL46XBR2

 

Sony KDL46XBR2 and DiscoveryHD

 

So far so good, had to also get the TV stand, as well as a new HD Cable Box (which has DVR functionality built-in).  HD quality is good, and the plethora of settings for this set makes for lots of hours tweaking the last little bit out of the set.

All-in-all I’m happy so far, and have another week or so before the return window closes.

Trimmed Archive Links Down

Just a note that I trimmed the Archive links down a bit.  Having them listed from 2002 was a bit too much for my liking, so I trimmed it to the last 12 months of posts.