November 1998

We've obviously got some explaining to do this month. Fans of the old TV game show "Concentration" have flooded our inboxes wanting to know why the October MSJ sported an impenetrable puzzle on the cover. At the risk of spawning a family feud with the MSJ art department, we must point out that "Seven Lampposts for Waspter COM," "Seven Spoons for Stingter COM," or "Seven Matches for Beeter COM," were not the "Seven Tips for Better COM" we were after. The (Q)-tip clue was apparently a bit too soft.        Don Box's article also spawned another long email thread. To tell the truth, Don stated that "The Intel Network Monitor that ships with Windows NT Server and systems management server is a reasonable product that parses COM packet traces fairly well, although any DCE RPC compatible product will do." What's my line? Is it the "Intel Network Monitor" or the "Microsoft Network Monitor" that ships with Windows NT Server and SMS? Our technical accuracy didn't take a hit. At least for SMS 1.2, installation options include the "Intel SMS Administrator" and the "Intel Network Monitor." Tattletales assure us that this is an oversight. The real name is the Microsoft Network Monitor.        Time to change the channel. In synch with the Professional Developers Conference (PDC), this issue features the start of MSJ's Windows NT 5.0 Beta 2 coverage. Our esteemed Jeffrey Richter, together with Microsoft architect Luis Felipe Cabrera, covers the latest on the Windows NT file system, NTFS 5.0. Microsoft development lead Michelle Quinton takes us behind the scenes of TAPI 3.0—TAPI 2.x plus media streaming! Behind door number three, the third article this month yields an international flair as Avery Bishop, David Brown, and David Meltzer from Microsoft discuss multilingual text layout and complex scripts. Follow their advice and your app won't be in jeopardy running in other countries.        The PDC will feature tracks that cover management services such as the Windows Installer (covered in Mike Kelly's article in the September issue of MSJ—we're scooping ourselves!) and the Microsoft Management Console. Presentation services will focus heavily on DHTML and XML. These certainly are the domain of our sister pub, MIND. Windows DNA, directory and security services, presentation, middle-tier and data services, DirectX, core and base OS services, Windows CE, and Visual Studio tools round out the name-dropping. There's a good chance you'll see articles on these topics in upcoming issues of MSJ. Bill Gates, Bob Muglia, Paul Gross, and David Vaskevitch are slated to give the keynote and general session addresses. The price is right to attend the PDC in person, but if you can't make it, you can keep up with what's happening by tuning in to http://events.microsoft.com/events/pdc.        In all the excitement, we definitely want to beat the clock and not miss the opportunity to introduce Keith Brown as our rookie writer for a new column, Security Briefs. Keith is a security programming expert and joins Don Box as the other half of our DevelopMentor dynamic duo. Security Briefs will examine security issues from Windows CE to Windows NT, from device drivers to Win32 and COM. You may have caught Keith in his very first appearance as an MSJ columnist at last month's MSDN/MSJ Columnist chat (http://msdn.microsoft.com/developer/news/chat/082798/default.htm). You can email your $64,000 security question to Keith at kbrown@develop.com. — J.F. From the November 1998 issue of Microsoft Systems Journal