I wanted to write a blog post to document how I do some day-to-day things. It helps me to keep track of my work habits, refine them and perhaps help some others who are looking for some solutions. My current rig is a Apple MacBook Pro 13” unibody. It has the 250Gb drive with 4Gb memory. I am running the latest version of OS X Leopard. I am really enjoying the 13” form factor. It is a little smaller and lighter than the previous 15” unibody which, to me, just felt heavy. I also don't notice the lost ......

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Microsoft is accepting submissions for the waitlist for the Office 2010 Technical Preview. This is an especially great opportunity if you are already running Exchange 2010 in the lab and want to see how using Outlook 2010 will enhance the experience with things like mail tips, conversation view and universal inbox. The preview is slated to kick off in July. If you attended TechEd 2009 this year, you get priority seeding in to the preview. Sign up in one click at the TechEd event site with your login ......

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As I contemplate the design that was going to be an organizational upgrade to Exchange 2007 – I am now shifting gears towards skipping to an upgrade of Exchange 2010. Some things that are influencing my decision: The ability to use lower tier storage without compromising performance on the mailbox server. Thanks to all of the database optimizations like sequential writes, db schema re-design and table optimization, cache changes, etc. The database is now truly a portable and replicable object. Now ......

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Then look no further than Evernote. I had heard about this app for awhile and even had it languishing on my iPhone never to be used. Then I started to look in to it as I tried to find something that would let me merge notes from my Mac and my Windows virtual machines. Not only is it cross-platform, but you can synchronize all of your notes over the internet between desktops, laptops and mobile devices. It is much more than a note taking app, with the ability to make web clippings and translate the ......

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I hate to rant, but what is the deal with no Outlook for Mac OS X? How hard is it to port this application over? My guess is not too hard, however, if *every* great Microsoft app was available for OS X then the reasons for running Windows would diminish quickly. I was running native OS X for awhile (no Windows BootCamp or virtual machines) but was killed by the lack of a few apps it became clear I relied quite a bit on: Microsoft Outlook 2007 Microsoft OneNote 2007 Microsoft Visio Professional 2007 ......

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For the past three weeks I have been testing the new Nokia e71 and Apple’s iPhone 3g. Both phones are well built and deliver as promised in almost all areas. Below I will give a few tidbits about my experiences with each one. I am also at the same time working on deploying Microsoft’s System Center Mobile Device Manager (SCMDM). This will not come in to play with either of these devices though. Although they have licensed and support Exchange ActiveSync, SCMDM will only support devices running a ......

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I have been looking at a new software add-on package for Microsoft Outlook called Xobni (Inbox spelled backwards). I was directed to it by Viral's blog and it is quite interesting. It is in by-invitation beta right now, click on the badge in my sidebar to get more information and sign up (disclosure: clicks get you quicker beta product access). Some of the features the product provides are : "Lightning" fast email search (I put lightning fast in quotes as I have not had a chance to try the product. ......

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I have recently been introduced to a company called PostPath. They are a new technology company that have created a Linux-based alternative to Microsoft's Exchange. Their proposition is that Microsoft Outlook is the killer application. As long as users can run Outlook and have all the features and functionality that they are used to, it shouldn't matter what is serving it up on the back end. And if that back end can run on cheaper hardware and storage with a highly-flexible open source OS, all the ......

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Microsoft has released rollup 3 for Exchange Server 2007. You can download it here. This rollup also contains all the fixes from rollups 1 and 2. It is also rumored to also contain a fix that allows for IMAP connectivity to the soon forthcoming Apple iPhone. Other fixes include: • 931328 (http://support.microsoft.c... An integer is added to the end of the legacyExchangeDN attribute of a newly created mailbox in Exchange 2007 • 930468 (http://support.microsoft.c... The attachment ......

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I have had this brought up by some co-workers and wondered if anyone from MS would like to officially comment? When Outlook 2003 was released there was the potential for un-patched Exchange 5.5 information stores to get corrupted or experience problems and dismount. Is Outlook 2007 officially (as in written somewhere - not just anecdotally) supported against a mailbox on an Exchange 2003 SP2 server? Comments welcomed. Update: I finally found, buried here, this: Connectivity to Microsoft Exchange ......

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In the world of RSS and newsreaders there is a war of preferences going around over how people prefer to read their feeds. Categorized by feed, type of feed, or as a “river of news.” In other words first in, first displayed, in a long list and you simply scan top-to-bottom. I have tried both and IMO both have merit. River of news lets you see everything in an instant, and I find it useful for quickly locating important event. Then I read the “normal” stuff later on. When I am ready to consume all ......

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The Exchange team blog posted a great article on the features available with different versions of Outlook when coupled with different versions of Exchange on the back end. One of the cool features when using Outlook and Exchange 2007 is enhanced Out of Office Assistant. You have the option to customize and turn off or on Out of Office messages for those inside your organization and those outside your organization. Very nice. You also have a number of rich text formatting options available so you ......

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Dear Southern Ohio Exchange Users Group - I am pleased to announce that Microsoft MVP and all around Exchange good-guy Paul Robichaux will be speaking at the February 1st meeting in Mason, Ohio at 6:30pm (Max Technical Training Center). Paul will be addressing Unified Messaging in Exchange 2007. Paul has been actively working with Exchange and a leader in the community for as long as I can remember. Paul is a partner with 3Sharp, author of truckload of books and magazine articles (Windows IT Pro ......

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Not too long ago there was only one blogging tool that I felt great about – BlogJet. I used it for a long time and was very happy. There wasn’t anything I was especially displeased with. Then some more blogging tools made their way on to my radar. From Microsoft. Generally, I will give any product from Microsoft a shot. I use a Microsoft OS. I am a (largely) Microsoft-centric systems engineer and technical manager. The first was during the beta testing of the Microsoft Office System 2007. My favorite ......

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Exchange Server 2007: A Quick Hands-on Overview in an Online Virtual Lab Express

In this 30-minute Virtual Lab Express, you will familiarize yourself with the Exchange Management Console and Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access, and work with compliance and records management rules.

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I took a spin through the TechNet Virtual labs for Exchange 2007 and I was very impressed! The experience was smooth and very well organized. I even learned a few interesting things. When running through the installation for a new server, one of the steps is to query you for the versions of Outlook you will be running in your environment. All Outlook 2007 or a mix of previous versions of Outlook? I wondered why you are prompted for this information. I had an inkling as Exchange 2003 is able to restrict ......

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I'm listening to Somewhere Out There by Our Lady Peace from the album Gravity I have really started to take advantage of the unread mail view\filter available in Outlook 2007 (and Outlook 2003) to get a better handle on mail coming in. This view will show all of my mail and RSS items that have the unread flag turned on. At first it took some getting used to as some of the RSS feeds that come with Outlook 2007 by default have a lot of postings (MSNBC News for example) as well as all of the MOM alert ......

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I have had trouble in the past when installing the Exchange System Manager (ESM) on my laptop so I can modify email information about a user in Active Directory Users and Computers (ADUC). I get conflicts with Outlook (some shared or overwritten DLLs I imagine) or in the case of Outlook 2007 Beta 2, outright consistent crashes. I found this article by Jim McBee on how to copy just the needed DLLs from an Exchange server to the workstation in question. The page isn't available on his site for some ......

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Since the technical refresh to Beta 2 was released thousands have downloaded the new bits. I was a bit disappointed that the link the beta team posted brought me to the public site where Microsoft tried to charge me $4.50 to download the updates. I am also disappointed that the people who have been beta testing this for over a year and a half don't get some advanced lead on downloading the updates, but rather have to wait in quite the crowded queue with the general public. Thanks for the appreciation ......

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An update to the Windows Desktop Search has just been released and I am happy to say it has a lot of welcome fixes. Dubbed version 3.0 beta 2 it is available here. Since beta testing Office 2007, I was forced to install an interim update to Windows Desktop Search so it would work with Office and also index Outlook and OneNote 2007. One of the undesirable side-effects was that it removed the GUI interface from the desktop or task bar that allowed me to search for files. I could only do it from within ......

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Now this is an interesting little concept: Pando Networks has developed an Outlook Plug-In that will initiate an P2P file transfer from an email message if the attachment exceeds the specified limit allowed for attachments in the email.

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Another Request for the Microsoft RSS Team:I have been digging the improved RSS feed reading within the IE 7 beta 3. It is a big improvement and really adds to the usability of the feature(s). However, one thing I would love to see is synchronization of the feed read\unread states between IE 7 and Outlook 2007. I love how it syncs the subscription list, but I hate having to manage the “read state” of my posts between the two applications. Especially since I heavily depend on the Outlook ......

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Vista, you sure are hard to love. I am trying my best, to love you unconditionally - I know you are a beta baby - but you make it very difficult. I have loaded Beta 2 a couple of times already - but when the going got tough (which was usually pretty early on) I quickly bailed and re-installed XP SP2. This time, in my TechEd 2006, drinking the Kool Aide, hangover stupor, I decided to install it again and try my best to live through the tough times. Here is where I am at: Office 2007 Beta 2 works amazingly ......

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Okay, I am a lot less concerned about Windows Vista after seeing this build than I was with build 5308. The “fit and finish” of this build is way beyond what 5308 was. All of my device drivers for a Thinkpad R52 were automagically detected and installed. I haven't had a chance to see if the Thinkpad-specific software works yet or not; I hope to try that tomorrow. The widgets work nicely. LUA still blows; and I am not going to re-hash the arguments. However, it presents itself in a much ......

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NewsGator has released a new version of their product that allows you to read RSS from within Outlook. Called NewsGator InBox, Nick made an announcement in his blog. I am curious to see how this product fares and evolves now that Outlook 2007 will natively support RSS feeds. Given that so far the implementation has been pretty bare bones, I have a feeling there will still be plenty of room for products like this. It is interesting to see that these types of services and applications live for a short ......

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I love the built-in RSS features of Outlook 12. However, the specifics seem a little blurry. Perhaps I am not looking in the right place. Perhaps it is just a technical beta! I can import an OPML file; but beyond that I don't see much or any customization. How often feeds are checked, how many to keep, etc. Hopefully more features, customization, etc. will be added as we move through the beta process. I would like to see: The ability to control some things globally via a RSS tab in TOOLS > OPTIONS ......

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I took the plunge after reading a couple of reviews of the November CTP and all I can say is wow! I am running a Toshiba M200 with the February CTP build of Vista (5308) and the “tablet” experience is phenomenal. I haven't had to load a single driver! Well, I did have to load the beta nVidia driver for my GeForce go 5200 to get the Aero Glass. Otherwise, everything is working “out of the box.” Now, I should disclaimer that – there are a few Toshiba-specific gadgets that ......

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Now playing: Fall Out Boy - Sugar, We're Goin Down I have run in to problems with the Offline Address Book an amazing number of times; and more often than not, on brand-new Exchange 2003 installs. Some of the common fixes, like rebuilding the OAB or deleting it and creating a new one, don't often work. The Outlook 2003 client is stuck with the infamous 0x8004010F error. After reading this article at msexchange.org I downloaded the mentioned OABInteg utility and had my problem fixed in about 5 minutes. ......

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I love the way Outlook 12 handles appointment updates. First off, you don't need to continuously accept appointment updates if you have already accepted the original request. You are only notified of the change. Included is a screen shot of a meeting change. Notice how it crosses out the old item and shows the updated time and date. Very easy to follow, very nicely done.

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Download this wonderful tool here. The Outlook Web Access (OWA) administration tool provides web-based UI for all administrator tunable OWA settings. It provides a list of all servers in the domain and allows administration of OWA settings on all Front-end and Back-end servers. The tool ensures that settings are correctly written to the server’s registry and provides inline documentation for all configurable features ......

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Office 2003 Service Pack 2 was released on Monday. The update, along with additional information, can be found here. Another feature to note is that when used in conjunction with the latest Outlook Junk Mail Filter update and new anti-phishing feature is turned on by default. Here is the text from the website: Microsoft Office Outlook® 2003 Phishing Protection and Junk E-mail FilterSP2 contains a new Phishing Protection feature to be used with the Outlook Junk Email Filter. Phishing is the luring ......

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I had the unfortunate opportunity yesterday to come in to work only to find that all of our Public Folders had been deleted from the our Exchange 5.5 site. It seems the administrator from another site had finished migrating from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2003. He decided he didn't want “everyone else’s” Public Folders showing up in his tree, and since he couldn't see the content of the folders, figured they were local copies only. Delete. Whoops. This had happened once before, when ......

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