Installing and Configuring Office Web Apps Server for SharePoint 2013 Farm

Having read about the improvements in browser-based file viewing and editing services for Office files by using Office Web Apps Server, particularly for SharePoint 2013 Farm, I have decided to set it up and configure in my own test environment.  Office Web Apps 2013 now requires dedicated server(s), either physical or virtual, where we can set up an Office Web Apps Server farm with load balancing and scale-out capability in addition to high availability, to provide the services to multiple on-premises hosts.

I already set up and configured my SharePoint 2013 virtual machine (running on Windows Server 2012) on my Windows 8 laptop.  I got a domain controller, named corp.com set up in the virtual machine.  So the next step for me is to set up a new virtual machine to run the Office Web Apps 2013.  Below are the steps that I performed (for HTTP connection to Office Web Apps Server):

• Create a new virtual machine, including a new virtual hard disk using the Hyper-V Manager. 
• Create Internal Network Virtual Switch on the Hyper-V Manager and configure the new virtual machine to use it so that the new virtual machine can talk with my existing SharePoint 2013 virtual machine.  Similarly I need to configure my SharePoint 2013 virtual machine to use this Internal Network Virtual Switch as well.
• Install Windows Server 2012 and configure its Network Settings (IPv4) to be in the same network segment as my SharePoint 2013 virtual machine.
• Rename my new virtual machine's computer name to "owa" and join it to the "corp.com" domain.
• Open the Windows PowerShell prompt as an administrator and run the following commands to install the required roles and services.  Restart the virtual machine once completed:

Add-WindowsFeature Web-Server,Web-Mgmt-Tools,Web-Mgmt-Console,Web-WebServer,Web-Common-Http,Web-Default-Doc,Web-Static-Content,Web-Performance,Web-Stat-Compression,Web-Dyn-Compression,Web-Security,Web-Filtering,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-App-Dev,Web-Net-Ext45,Web-Asp-Net45,Web-ISAPI-Ext,Web-ISAPI-Filter,Web-Includes,InkandHandwritingServices

Programming in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3 - Free Microsoft Exam Voucher

This is not related to SharePoint, but I am always keen on catching up my coding skills with the latest technologies since caught up with .NET in year 2000.  Recently, I passed a new Microsoft exam: 70-480 Programming in HTML 5 with JavaScript and CSS3.  From what I learnt, HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3 is a promising web technology with impressive features and is becoming a de-facto standard in web application development world. 

Though I don't have to write code for my job anymore, playing around with new tools and technologies is my great interest. Last year, I also explored and worked on my personal mobile web application project using ASP .NET MVC 4 mobile application template and jQuery Mobile framework.  I can say that these emerging technologies are all fantastic and greatly recommended. 

There is a free HTML5 exam voucher offered by Microsoft in case you haven’t heard of it and interested to be certified as well.  You can go to this link to get the free voucher: http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/html5-offer.aspx. Not sure when it will expire though. You can also take the free online course Developing in HTML5 with JavaScript and CSS3 Jump Start for your exam preparation http://channel9.msdn.com/Series/Developing-HTML-5-Apps-Jump-Start To motivate you further, click and read this http://readwrite.com/2013/01/30/top-7-in-demand-tech-skills-for-2013   All the best..