The PHP group have just released PHP 5.2.6 containing over 120 bug fixes, with several of them being security related. This is the first production release of PHP since PHP 5.2.5 was released back in early November last year, so it is good to see things are moving along.

Simple Network Monitoring Protocol (SNMP) is a protocol designed to be the eyes and ears for the System Administrator by providing a standard interface that can be used to monitor all manner of items connected to a network. Not only can SNMP monitor, it can also alert System Administrators to elements of their environments that are operating outside of their threshold. It was for these reasons I recently installed the Microsoft SNMP agent on my own Windows 2003 server, however I had forgotten just how limited the scope of the Microsoft SNMP agent was.

Virtualisation is a very hot topic at the moment, and although VMWare are definitely on top of the pile Microsoft's is set to make a challenge with its soon to be released Hyper-V offering which is now in release candidate stage. VMWare have got years of experience on their side, and may even have a more polished product (if you believe all the VMWare blog posts) but Microsoft are set to have a massive advantage, particularly with SMEs, as Hyper-V is a key feature of Windows Server 2008.

It's been quite sometime since any updates have been made to the IIS Aid PHP Installer, so it is quite overdue that I announce the release of the first beta versions of the all new IIS Aid PHP Installer using PHP 5. You may notice I said versions. This is because the IIS Aid PHP Installer is now offered in both 32-bit and 64-bit, and is the only free PHP Installer program built specifically for IIS to do so.

Although this article has nothing to do with IIS directly, it does have everything to do with total loss of critical data which is relevant to any content based server such as IIS. On Friday the 29th of Feburary I returned home to the flat I share with my fiancee here in London to find her extremely distressed. She promptly inform me that we had been burgled, and that the low life who performed the act had gotten almost everything of value to us. My head began throbing and I became dizzy as my fiancee unraveled the serires of events that had occurred that night.

It's finally happened; Microsoft have officially launched Windows 2008 and IIS 7 into the wild. Congratulations to all the Microsoft engineers on their hard work, and in particular to the IIS 7 team. See the full story here

For years I've been using the services at dnsreport.com to validate DNS and email configurations. I've not used them in a while and had to recently and found that they have shifted to a pay for use service. While I have no problem with them doing this at all, it does mean that dnsreport.com no longer suits my needs (i.e free to use for ad hoc reports) and I needded to find an alternative.

Just catching up on some IIS reading as I've been on holidays for the last few weeks and saw a blog post by Bill Staples saying that IIS 7 is finished for Vista SP1 and Windows 2008 Server, and has been signed off by the IIS team. Congratulations to the IIS team on this massive achievement that has been over four years in the making!