First: Get well Frank. Frank would have to be the most loved 'softie in Australia I reckon. Chuck would be in the running if going anywhere near water with him wasn't so dangerous. Speaking of Charles Sterling - he has given us an update on how Frank is going and provided a link to patient e-mail system that we can use to send messages Frank. I decided to take some time out to craft a little status update for TechTalkBlogs.

"We are looking after TechTalkBlogs for you mate. In your absence we have decided to turn it into a Linux advocacy site. Hope you don't mind.

Go tux!

(Note to medical staff: If Frank goes into convultions after reading this e-mail whisper "zune is coming, zune is coming" into his ear).

Anyway - hopefully he feels better after getting my e-mail. I figure that since he can't get a net connection out it is going to be atleast 24 hours before my TTB credentials are revoked :) Seriously though - hope you start feeling better soon Frank!

On with the show . . .

On Thursday (at the Ready Summit in Sydney) I will be presenting a 45-minute session on the security enhancements that have been incorporated into Windows Vista and how they will affect application developers. In the session I will be touching on the following topics:

  • User Access Control
    • Why?
    • Consent Dialogs and Shield Indicators
    • Tokens and Privilege Elevation
      • Application Manifests
      • Installer Detection
      • "Run as administrator"
    • Application Compatibility Strategies
      • Registry and File System Redirection
      • Application Compatibility Shims
    • Admin Code Seperation Strategies
      • Service Broker Strategy
      • Side-by-Side Process Strategy
      • Elevated COM Component Strategy
  • Network Access Protection
  • CardSpaces
    • Lessons from Passport
    • The Laws of Identity
    • What is CardSpaces?

I think the ones that most people will be interested in will be UAC - mostly because there is a perception of pain there, although I've been running Vista pretty much solid for quite a while now as a developer and its not too bad - and there a few tricks we can use to make sure that our users don't have problems installing our apps.

After that I think the next big exciting thing for developers is CardSpaces, mostly because it represents a shift away from monolithic security mechanisms to more flexible user-orientated identity management systems.

I'm looking forward to a fast paced session with this one with lots of interaction - especially around UAC.