Here is the interesting post Cyber Security Bulletin SB09-117  that I found from US-CERT (United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team).

Here is the extract about the methods followed to generate the alert:

The US-CERT Cyber Security Bulletin provides a summary of new vulnerabilities that have been recorded by the National Institute of Standards and Technology ( NIST ) National Vulnerability Database ( NVD ) in the past week. The NVD is sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security ( DHS ) National Cyber Security Division ( NCSD ) / United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team ( US-CERT ). For modified or updated entries, please visit the NVD, which contains historical vulnerability information.

The vulnerabilities are based on the CVE vulnerability naming standard and are organized according to severity, determined by the Common Vulnerability Scoring System ( CVSS ) standard.

Here is your chance to win one of 10 great prizes, including a free PASS Summit 2009 registration or 4 nights free hotel at PASS Summit 2009, free Pre/Post-Conference session registration, or a full set of PASS Summit 2008 session recording DVDs.

Community Committee in PASS has taken best feedback from the community and running this exciting contest on you talk about all the great stuff you learned at PASS Summit that more than paid for your attendance. Now's your chance to turn talk into treasure!

Enter the “Best Thing I Learned at PASS” Contest, and you could win Just publish a blog post or email us about the most valuable technical tip or advice you gained at a PASS Summit conference—and how it paid off big for you or your organization. Email your 250-word submission or your blog post link to contact@sqlpass.org no later than July 1, 2009, with the subject line “Best Thing I Learned at PASS” and further read-on on contest tips and rules.

If you enthusiastic little more in sharing/passing the news about SUMMIT 2009 then view the collection of PASS Summit desktop and phone wallpapers, signatures, website banners, tweet sheet and more. Download the graphics and have fun adding them to your blogs, emails, chapter meetings, and wherever else to build excitement for PASS Summit 2009. Tell your friends about the Summit and invite them to join you for great education, networking and to be inspired!

PASS Summit 2009 is the one conference of the year that is guaranteed to deliver high quality SQL Server and BI skills training, best practices, solid advice, and solutions that can be implemented immediately. Use the Summit graphics and together let's gear towards making this a fantastic conference.

I bet the subject will pull more interest for every IT user to see what kind of database, security and web design tools are available for free!

No doubt that the media & communication has became quick & fast to pass on the information by the way of blogs & websites in addition to the Television advertisements. So such a data & right to information explosion it is good to see that Microsoft is making it possible to compete with Open Source for the tools such as Database, Security and Web design related areas.

To get in to details Microsoft is making available its web design tool FREE for everyone which is called Sharepoint Designer (SPD), this is a successor of Microsoft Frontpage tool that many IT users are alread aware of in addition to the excellent support for customizing the free Sharepoint Services application that is installed along with Windows server services. No doubt that offering such a valuable tool for free doesn't stop or restrict development from Microsoft side and Sharepoint Designer development team will continue its development and next version will be released in the future. In this area a professional suite of web design tools are available too, Express web (not for free).

To continue the subject for freely available tools, we can talk about Database related which is SQL Server Express and further I recommend to visit that link about features that are supported. Also the Visual Studio 2008 Express  for  Application Development and other areas such as security is Windows Defender & Windows Sysinternals (this has many valueable tools to find the systems internals). In addition to that you could download  Live Essentials and PhotoSynth for video related tasks with an handy usage of  Accounting Express for small businesses & individuals to control their accounting purpose. Finally I always use the Virtual PC to host and test any new versions of above applications & operating systems without jeopardising the exisitng laptop/server.

No doubt that you will agree with such an availability of complimentary services you can run your complete business with the above set of free products without spending a fortune like for other technologies in the market or flaky open source software.

How do you monitor and catch the blocked process within your SQL environment?

Using Query Editor in SQL Server Management Studio to find the blocked processes is a common approach and further to that you can use the advanced configuration (SP_CONFIGURE) to use blocked process threshold option to specify the threshold, in seconds, at which blocked process reports are generated. The deault behaviour of SQL engine is no blocked process reports are produced and the threshold can be set from 0 to 86,400, chose the relevant value as per your testing and environment. Also for your information such events are not generate for system processes or any other processes that are waiting on resources that do not generate detectable deadlocks. The default behaviour of this Blocked Process threshold uses the  deadlock monitor background thread to walk through the list of tasks waiting for a time greater than or multiples of the configured threshold. The event is generated once per reporting interval for each of the blocked tasks, so the usage of this alert depends upon the best effort basis & testing in your environment and to this there is no guarantee of any real-time or even close to real-time reporting.

Also another task is to catch the events are generated by SQL Server and logged on to Windows application log. Using the SQL Server Agent you can define an ALERT that reads the application log and compares events written there to alerts that you have defined, in any case when Agent finds a match, it fires an alert, which is an automated response to an event. In addition to monitoring SQL Server events, SQL Server Agent can also monitor performance conditions and Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) events.

To talk more on the subject line on the tool its my pleasure to announce the new tool called SQL Server Blocked Process Monitor which has been developed by a SQL MVP Jonathan Kehayias. The best part of this tool is "It uses a SMO trace, and collects the blocked process reports from SQL Server, then uses the sql_handle's to get the sql_text from sys.dm_exec_sql_text and updates the XML document before writing it to a XML output file". Make best use of this tool and feedback your response on Discussions link.

Are you looking for detailed explanation and information about XML Schema collections and also about XSD?

With a reference to ebook you can learn and build powerful XML schema collections to valid XML documents within your applications?

Here is the answer, I have a great pleasure to share the news that my fellow MVP Jacob Sebastian has released an eBook called "The Art of XSD - SQL Server XML Schema Collections".

Why you need to know about this book and more about XML, XSD and so on?

Today, a lot of applications exchange information in XML format. As such, there needs to be an agreement between the sender and receiver about the structure and content of the XML document. An XSD (XML Schema Definition Language) Schema can be used to enforce this contract and validate the XML data being exchanged. With SQL Server 2005 came the new native XML data type, and with it support for a subset of XSD. SQL Server stores XML schemas as 'XML Schema Collections', representing SQL Server objects, such as tables, views or stored procedures. Based on an XSD schema, you can create an XML Schema Collection that can be used to validate an XML data type, variable or column. An XML variable or column that is associated with an XML Schema Collection is known as TYPED XML. SQL Server validates a TYPED XML value against the rules defined in the schema collection. INSERT or UPDATE operations will succeed only if the value being inserted or updated is valid as per the rules defined in the Schema Collection.

What you can get out of this book on XML Schema collections?

This book will help you learn and use XML Schema collections in SQL Server. Also good news is for the basic users and prior knowledge of XSD is not required to start with this book, although any experience with XSD will make your learning process easier. This book starts with the basics of XML schemas and then walks you through everything you need to know, with examples and labs, in order to build powerful XML schemas in SQL Server.

Where can you get this book?

You can download the ebook from Red-gate's site - http://www.red-gate.com/specials/Ebooks/XSD_0409.htm link.

Above you can see that I have interpreted Jacob's own review on his ebook, it is a recommended resource for XML users.

As a part of Microsoft MVP programme every now and then set of email communication will be received from MVP leads (thanks to Akim & Vicki). Most of them are already available/posted on MSDN & Technet blogs by MSFT professionals and for few of them I'm keen to blog on here too.

Being I'm an IT PRO I would like to share the communication/knowledge I receive in this regard in specific to IT PRO resources, best bets with career & learning links.

Microsoft is making substantial efforts to provide customers with tools and services aimed at increasing the successful deployment and healthy operation of Microsoft products within customer environments. To that end, here is a list of free resources from Microsoft TechNet designed with IT Professionals in mind.

·         Best bets

·         Career and Learning

·         Additional IT Pro specific resources

Best bets

S. No.	Resource	Detail	URL
1.	TechNet Flash newsletter	The biweekly TechNet Flash IT newsletter delivers the latest IT news, security bulletins, product updates, event announcements, and more, making it easy for you to stay in the know	Sign up now for either HTML or text format.
2.	How Do I Videos	These short 10- to 15-minute videos focus on specific tasks and show you how to accomplish them step-by-step using Microsoft products and technologies.	http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/cc138021.aspx
3.	TechNet Magazine	Magazine for IT Pros	http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/default.aspx
4.	Microsoft Server Quest	Fun game that tests your IT skills	www.microsoft.com/click/serverquest

 

Career and Learning          

S. No.	Resource	Detail	URL
1.	Microsoft Thrive	Resources for managing your IT Career	www.microsoft.com/click/thrive
2.	Are you Certifiable	Fun game that tests your IT Knowledge	www.microsoft.com/click/areyoucertifiable
3.	Webcasts	TechNet Webcasts are 60-to-90–minute live broadcasts featuring interactive technical presentations, product demonstrations, and question-and-answer sessions presented by an expert on Microsoft technology, the industry, or both	http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/events/default.aspx#current
4.	TechNet Podcasts	Listen to Microsoft webcast and media content whenever and wherever you want. You can stream or download these audio podcasts on your favorite podcast software or mobile device	http://www.microsoft.com/events/podcasts/default.aspx

 

Additional IT Pro Specific Resources

S. No.	Resource	Detail	URL
5.	Virtual Labs	Quickly evaluate and test Microsoft's newest server products through a series of guided, hands-on labs you can complete in 90 minutes or less	http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/virtuallabs/default.aspx
6.	eLearning Snacks	Learning Snacks are short, interactive presentations about popular topics created by Microsoft Learning experts.	http://www.microsoft.com/learning/snacks/default.mspx
7.	TechNet Forums	Answers from the community on a variety of topics	http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/categories
8.	TechNet Radio	TechNet Radio is an Internet radio show with content for IT professionals. It features the latest information from Microsoft insiders and industry luminaries, as well as profiles of leading companies	http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/bb510143.aspx
9.	Security Intelligence Report	The Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIR) provides an in-depth perspective on the changing threat landscape including software vulnerability disclosures and exploits, malicious software (malware), and potentially unwanted software	http://www.microsoft.com/security/portal/sir.aspx
10.	TechNet Product Downloads	TechNet offers you a robust evaluation experience through downloadable beta and trial software.	http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/default.aspx
11.	TechNet Edge	TechNet Edge is a place where IT professionals go to get the inside scoop on the latest and greatest technologies	http://edge.technet.com

 

In continuation to Cumulative Update 3 package for SQL Server 2005 SP3 I think there is bit more to add up, recently when I have been volunteering at recent SQL conferences one of the users mentioned about few questions on these CU package updates:

• where to find information about list of cumulative update packages after the last SP is released?
• understanding ISM for SQL Server
• previous CU KBAs

So here they are:

• The SQL Server 2005 builds that were released after SQL Server 2005 Service Pack 3 was released  
• Understanding Incremental Servicing Model for SQL Server
• Previous CU#1 KB Article.

Finally take your time to visit the new SQL Server Support Information website about top issues, Developer support voice in addition to list of references on topics such as: Cluster (non-setup), Connectivity, DTS, OLAP, Query plans and many more. Also this support information site consists information on How-To Articles, Download details and Troubleshooting links. 

Woo hoo, I'm MVP again - "Congratulations 2009 Microsoft MVP!": 4th time.

Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2009 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others.

I know it is all hardwork and achievement as a recognition from a Technology leader, at the same time I value the feedback I receieve from my community for my contributions, I follow: Knowledge is the power, you will gain by sharing it!

Thanks to everyone who has supported all these years together in the community.

-Satya Shyam K Jayanty

(SQL Master)

MIX & PDC, 2 popular and catchy conferences for Developers in IT world!

I favour MIX conference more than PDC as you get to know in-depth knowledge & features about cloud computing, .NET services and other major exciting developing technologies in IT world. MIX 2009 has been completed recently and here are list of sessions that you can download/watch at your liesure.

Here is my favourite list of sessions from this MIX 2009 (I will get you blofull list :

Day One Keynote

Enhancing Large Windows Media Platforms with Microsoft Silverlight (Robert Ames, Matt Smith)

The Future of Microsoft Expression Blend (Douglas Olson, Christian Schormann)

C# for Designers (Fred Gerantabee, Jennifer Smith)

Go Beyond Best Practices: Evolving Next Practices to Prosper in the 21st Century (Lou Carbone)

A Lap around Microsoft .NET Services (Todd Holmquist-Sutherland, John Shewchuk)

What's New in Microsoft SQL Data Services (Nigel Ellis)

Overview of Windows Azure (Manuvir Das)

To get complete list of sessions and videos visit this MIX09-Sessions page.a

I wonder the energy of Pinal Dave my fellow MVP never runs out like the SQL Server , I name him as Duracell Bunny.

This year's MVP Global Summit 2009 in Seattle is the place where we happen to meet each other and in next few hours it is blogged  SQLAuthority News - MVP Summit 2009 - Day 1 - Summit Welcome and Keynotes on his site!

Every year I find MVP global summit as more useful and amusing to see the face behind the fame in SQL Server world.

Here is the email I got from Microsoft about actions on protecting from Downadup virus, MS08-067 notification. 

Based on feedback from MVPs  and other sources, we are concerned about the rise in reported infections due to the worm Win32/Conficker.B also known as “Downadup.”  Though systems which have already applied the out-of-band released MS08-067 in October 2008 are protected, unpatched system user have experienced system lockout and other problems. 

Last week, we released a version of the Malicious Software Removal tool (MSRT) that can help remove variants of Win32/Conficker and other resources.  Please share this information in your communities to help address this threat.

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