Group Policy Central

Approximately 2 years ago today the Group Policy Central web site went live. I am very glad to say that it has been going from strength to strength since then… I of course would like to thank all of you for visiting and coming back to my site as it is you the visitor to my site that makes all this effort worth while.

Just to show you how much this site has grown below are a few stats for this site to date:

1. 1,088,594 all time visits
2. 4,741 views on your busiest day, October 19, 2011
3. 1,631 comments
4. 256 Posts

And below is a bar graph showing the growth of the site since day one…

With a lot of Windows 8 some things coming this year I have no doubt that that there will be heaps more exciting content to come later this year… 

In case you did not already know I am organising a user Group event called Infrastructure Saturday. This event is a full day users group meeting jammed pack full of 18 session of content. Thanks to our sponsors this is a fully catered event (including Coffee!!!) and we will have HEAPS or prizes to win. The event will be held at the Microsoft Brisbane office on Saturday December 3rd.

The session detail and schedule are now published so if you would like to know more about the event or register go http://www.infrastructuresaturday.com

And of course I will also be speaking at this even about what is new with Group Policy in Windows 8.

I am very pleased to announce that my Group Policy App for Windows Phone is now on the Windows Phone Marketplace. This app pulls in all the RSS feeds from this site and many other Group Policy related web sites. It is also uses twitter to show you all the tweets with the #grouppolicy tag and the all the tweets from the official Group Policy Team twitter account @gpteam.

Best of all this app is FREE!!!

In case you were wondering who those guys are in the background of the app check out the Meet the Group Policy People article.

Now I have to admit that I am not a developer but this is my first attempt at making a Windows Phone application and it has been pretty easy. But if there are any issues with the application please use the Feedback button (under About) to email me directly or if you have any feature suggestions.  I also have to give a lot of credit has to go to David Glover who wrote the Social Viewer application template which this app is based on that can be found at http://socialviewer.codeplex.com .

Note: There is an update coming some time next week that will enable Facebook support and enable add support (got to pay the bills).

Download link zune://navigate/?phoneappid=5c39e194-1280-e011-986b-78e7d1fa76f8 (if the link doesn’t work you can just search for “Group Policy” on the marketplace.)

In case you have not noticed this web site has now got a new look. The new theme is a lot cleaner (inspired by Metro) and the menus are a little more touch friendly. If you do find any quirks or issues with the site please feel free to send me a message

You also might notice that  you get a slightly different look in the title bar (see images below). The gradual fading from left to right is actually a CSS Gradient (using CSS Gradient Maker) so it does not require the download of any image and it will dynamically change to fit the size your screen. Unfortunately this is not supported by IE9 (or earlier) so people who use those browsers will only see a solid colour.

Internet Explorer 9 (or earlier)

Internet Explorer 10, Firefox and Chrome.

If you are one of those people who use Facebook more than you care to admit (you know who you are) I have now setup a Facebook community page as another way to follow the posts on this site. However don’t worry if you don’t like Facebook as the page is only a mirror of what is posted on this site so you won’t miss anything if you just stay here…

Check it out at https://www.facebook.com/GroupPolicy