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Earlier this month I had to conduct an online training event as part of my entry to the Online Learning Facilitator of the Year 2012 Award.

The session was “interesting” and I enjoyed delivering it and sharing my passion for the upcoming Windows 8 OS.  As part of the session, I demonstrated the User Interface and did this by using the WebEx Share Application feature to share a Remote Desktop session to a purpose built Windows 8 laptop.

The technical set-up was quite cool, considering that there was a Hyper-V server in the background in case any of the three laptops that were being used failed.

The aim of the session was to “humanise” the transition to a new OS and provide a platform to ask questions. As a backup, I had uploaded my slide deck to SlideShare, which can be viewed below. Enjoy!

A lot of people have been asking me about the recent Zenos video success story that was made by Prodigy Learning and Certiport. I’ve been involved with the MTA since autumn 2009 and led one of the first pilots worldwide. The MTA is an excellent stepping stone to the higher level certifications and helps to build confidence.

Enjoy the video:

If you want to run the MTA programme at your institution, please visit Prodigy Learning (UK/Ireland) and Certiport (US and beyond). If you want to study towards the MTA and other great qualifications and are aged 16-24, please visit Zenos.

It’s about 2PM on a Saturday afternoon and you’re enjoying the weekend when out of the blue your phone rings and you see it’s a friend calling you who hasn’t talked to you for sometime. You think that it will be a nostalgic conversation, instead what greets you is a panicked voice saying that their computer is infected with a virus and they want you to come and help them.

One of the things that all IT Professionals advise when facing a serious malware infection is to disconnect the system and do an off-line virus scan. However, with so many different tools out there, it’s difficult to decide which is the best.  If you have been using MDOP, you may be aware of the Microsoft Standalone System Sweeper. A beta version of this tool is available publicly on the Microsoft Connect website.

The first step of using this tool is to download the appropriate version (either x86 or x64) from the Connect Website: http://connect.microsoft.com/systemsweeper

This tool then allows you to create the media required to troubleshoot the system. It can be either a USB flash stick, CD/DVD or even an ISO file.

When creating the media, the tool downloads the latest definitions from the Microsoft website.  The resulting file size for an ISO is no more than 250MB.

Once you have the MSSS media, you boot using it and it runs a scan to detect for malware using the Windows Defender Interface.

A full scan can take over 1 hour and it is best to have something else to do during this scanning phase. Once the scan is over you can simply remove it using the interface.

Simple but effective!