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Because I embrace my AI overlords, this edition of Short Takes looks at the next version of Windows 10, Microsoft’s AI art installation, whether Surface is really profitable, whether Microsoft’s embrace of Linux is real or a secret plot, and so much more.

PowerShell 7.0 introduces a familiar mainstay of most programming languages, the Ternary Operator. Using a much shorter syntax for if/then logic, it makes defining conditional values for properties much more concise and easy to read.

This month is light on security fixes and there are no zero-days but there are still plenty of critical flaws that need patching.

Seamlessly extending your local storage to the cloud is what hybrid cloud storage appliances offer. Sometimes these hybrid cloud storage options are extensions to local storage systems or sometimes they are specifically designed for hybrid cloud storage.

Microsoft announced September 25th on its Security blog that Azure Sentinel has reached general availability. Based on Azure Monitor Log Analytics, Sentinel adds a cloud-native Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solution to Azure’s already long list of services.

Microsoft now officially supports management of Android Enterprise fully managed devices using Intune.

Microsoft has a new version of Azure Data Box Edge that can fit in a backpack and runs on batteries.

A recent Microsoft post contained the news that Exchange Online uses Windows Server Core. That might be news to some, but not to anyone who’s been following the advice of the Exchange product group. Exchange Online doesn’t use virtual servers, follows a preferred architecture, wants to reduce the potential attack surface, and extract as much CPU as possible out of its servers. All good reasons why Windows Server Core helps.

Microsoft has a new pair of earbuds that don’t come cheap but they also integreat with Office 365.

Loops are one of those crucial logic components that every programming language uses extensively and PowerShell is by no means any different. A loop allows you to iterate through a collection of objects performing one or more operations on each.

Microsoft Teams is very successful at present, but a nagging doubt exists that some of the approaches taken by Microsoft towards Teams management and administration are less than optimum. It’s great to introduce a mass of new features on an ongoing basis and it’s better when policies exist to control the use of the features. But do new features always need to be enabled out-of-the-box?

Microsoft has a new SKU of Windows 10 but this version is introducing compartmentalization of Win32, a huge step towards making Windows 10, fully modular.