Did you know if you have a “Teams Premium” add-on license, there is a new feature that enables you to apply AI-generated backgrounds depending on your preferences?
It’s a new button that should show up under “Video effects” if your account has a Teams Premium license. Simply select “Decorate” and apply any number of AI-generated effects:
Clean up: Tidies up your surroundings, removing clutter and creating a more streamlined and minimalistic aesthetic.
Fancy: Incorporates lavish and elegant decorative elements, like wallpaper, candles, and chandeliers.
Greenhouse: Adds plants and greenery into your space.
Celebration: Includes festive decorations like balloons, streamers, and lighting.
Surprise me: Cycles through a variety of styles and themes to transform your space, including 2D animation, underwater, a block-style design reminiscent of Minecraft, and a space shuttle theme.
Microsoft’s “insiders” chat app, GroupMe, now comes with Copilot AI! All you university kids know what I’m talking about: The #1 free chat app on college campuses worldwide is back with a vengeance in a brand new, groundbreaking release. (6.101.3)
Got a question in GroupMe? Need to look something up? Wondering about an event date or time? Use the artificial intelligence of Microsoft Copilot directly from the GroupMe chat interface to pull in timely, up-to-date information.
Microsoft Copilot is your AI assistant, here to help you and your crew achieve anything you can imagine. Studying for finals? Ask Copilot to create a study guide for any subject. Planning your spring break trip to Cabo? Ask Copilot to make it epic. Hosting your annual 90s party? Ask Copilot to create a totally awesome Instagram flyer from right inside GroupMe.
We recently published a FREE special 10-module on-demand video training course, “DP-203 Data Engineering on Microsoft Azure”, where instructors were video-recorded for all modules.
In this course, the student will learn how to implement and manage data engineering workloads on Microsoft Azure, using Azure services such as Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2, Azure Stream Analytics, Azure Databricks, and others. The course focuses on common data engineering tasks such as orchestrating data transfer and transformation pipelines, working with data files in a data lake, creating and loading relational data warehouses, capturing and aggregating streams of real-time data, and tracking data assets and lineage.
All video recorded modules for “DP-203 Data Engineering on Microsoft Azure” are available below:
We recently published a FREE special 9-module on-demand video training course, “DP-500 Designing and Implementing Enterprise-Scale Analytics Solutions Using Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Power BI”, where instructors were video-recorded for all modules.
This course covers methods and practices for performing advanced data analytics at scale. Students will build on existing analytics experience and will learn to implement and manage a data analytics environment, query and transform data, implement and manage data models, and explore and visualize data. In this course, students will use Microsoft Purview, Azure Synapse Analytics, and Power BI to build analytics solutions.
All video recorded modules for “DP-500 Designing and Implementing Enterprise-Scale Analytics Solutions Using Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Power BI” are available below:
Note: DP-500 is being posted for those that have implemented Power BI however the curriculum has been updated recently to reflect the recent change in Power BI’s delivery to customers as part of Microsoft Fabric and as such has been replaced by DP-600 Microsoft Fabric Analytics Engineerhttps://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/courses/dp-600t00.
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Cloud-native technologies like containers and Kubernetes are the future of application development. That’s why we’re honored to announce that Microsoft has been named a Leader in the 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Container Management*. We believe that this recognition validates our end-to-end approach for developing and deploying enterprise-grade, cloud-native apps that run on Azure, in datacenters, or at the edge.
Read the full report to learn more about why Microsoft was named a Leader for container management.
*Gartner is a registered trademark and service mark and Magic Quadrant is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
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We’ve recently published for FREE our “Microsoft Fundamentals courses (900-level)” training courses which are typically 1 day of training, providing the basics or “101” of the topic they are covering. Usually about $300/student, the classes available include:
AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals
DP-900 Microsoft Azure Data Fundamentals
AI-900 Generative AI Fundamentals
MS-900 Microsoft 365 Fundamentals
SC-900 Microsoft Security, Compliance & Identity Fundamentals
MB-910 Microsoft Dynamics 365 Fundamentals (CRM)
AZ-900 Microsoft Azure Fundamentals This course will provide foundational level knowledge on cloud concepts; core Azure services; and Azure management and governance features and tools.
DP-900 Microsoft Azure Data Fundamentals In this course, students will gain foundational knowledge of core data concepts and related Microsoft Azure data services. Students will learn about core data concepts such as relational, non-relational, big data, and analytics, and build their foundational knowledge of cloud data services within Microsoft Azure. Students will explore fundamental relational data concepts and relational database services in Azure. They will explore Azure storage for non-relational data and the fundamentals of Azure Cosmos DB. Students will learn about large-scale data warehousing, real-time analytics, and data visualization.
Generative AI Fundamentals Generative AI is a form of artificial intelligence in which models are trained to generate new original content based on natural language input. In other words, you can describe a desired output in normal everyday language, and the model can respond by creating appropriate text, image, or even code output.
MS-900 Microsoft 365 Fundamentals This course introduces Microsoft 365, an integrated cloud platform that delivers industry-leading productivity apps along with intelligent cloud services, and world-class security. You’ll learn foundational knowledge on the considerations and benefits of adopting cloud services and the Software as a Service (SaaS) cloud model, with a specific focus on Microsoft 365 cloud service offerings. You will begin by learning about cloud fundamentals, including an overview of cloud computing. You will be introduced to Microsoft 365 and learn how Microsoft 365 solutions improve productivity, facilitate collaboration, and optimize communications. The course then analyzes how security, compliance, privacy, and trust are handled in Microsoft 365, and it concludes with a review of Microsoft 365 subscriptions, licenses, billing, and support.
SC-900 Microsoft Security, Compliance & Identity Fundamentals This course provides foundational level knowledge on security, compliance, and identity concepts and related cloud-based Microsoft solutions.
MB-910 Microsoft Dynamics 365 Fundamentals (CRM) Do you want to learn more about Dynamics 365? This course will provide you with a broad introduction to the customer engagement capabilities of Dynamics 365. You will become familiar with the concept of customer engagement, the core capabilities of customer engagement apps as well as with each of the customer engagement apps, including Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, Dynamics 365 Sales, Dynamics 365 Customer Service and Dynamics 365 Field Service. You will also learn how Copilot can assist you in executing customer engagement tasks in Dynamics 365. This course includes lectures and hands-on-labs.
Microsoft’s own IT department (known as “Microsoft Digital”) documented their deployment of Copilot for Microsoft 365 to us 200,000+ Microsoft employees in a detailed guide/eBook.
This is a 44pg .PDF file in which our Microsoft Digital covers how we prepared our environment for AI data governance, deployment, adoption, training, etc. Leveraging Microsoft’s internal framework for deployment & adotion, the document includes:
Revelations of Copilot for Microsoft 365’s Impact on Microsoft’s own 220,000 employees including improvements in speed, efficiency & labor
Establishing Governance & a special deployment checklist based on what we learned while tackling governance, security, and compliance
Implementation guidance both pre & post deployment & an implementation checklist that reflects Microsoft Digital’s learnings as we worked through Microsoft’s internal implementation and admin process
Building an Adoption plan & a checklist that reflects Microsoft Digital’s learnings while deploying Copilot at Microsoft and can act as a guide while you build out and implement your adoption plan
Creating a Support plan with a checklist that shares Microsoft Digital’s internal learnings and processes during our internal rollout. Consider incorporating these steps into your own support team preparations
And as a bonus, we’ve released a special, abridged version for CIOs/Executives. Download both books below:
We recently published a FREE special 20-module on-demand video training course, “DP-420 Designing and Implementing Cloud-Native Applications Using Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB”, where instructors were video-recorded for all modules.
This course teaches developers how to create application using the NoSQL API and SDK for Azure Cosmos DB. Students will learn how to write efficient queries, create indexing policies, manage and provisioned resources, and perform common operations with the SDK.
All video recorded modules for “DP-420 Designing and Implementing Cloud-Native Applications Using Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB” are available below:
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We recently published a FREE special 31-module on-demand video training course, “DP-300 Administering Microsoft Azure SQL Solutions”, where instructors were video-recorded for all modules.
This course provides students with the knowledge and skills to administer a SQL Server database infrastructure for cloud, on-premises and hybrid relational databases and who work with the Microsoft PaaS relational database offerings. Additionally, it will be of use to individuals who develop applications that deliver content from SQL-based relational databases.
All video recorded modules for “DP-300 Administering Microsoft Azure SQL Solutions” are available below:
I asked Copilot to help me explain Windows 11 Power Modes:
“What are the differences between recommended, better performance and best performance in windows 11 power modes? Break down each in terms of the technical nuances of each for an IT Professional that needs to select the right mode for different users that they support. List the relative power consumption of each mode and what makes each mode use more or less power.”
As an IT professional, consider the specific needs of your users and their workloads when selecting the appropriate power mode. For most users, the balanced plan suffices, but for power users or specialized tasks, high performance or best performance may be necessary. Always monitor system behavior to ensure optimal performance and power efficiency. 🚀💡
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