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Point them here. This is a great 2 minute explanation on how to set up a reader and subscribe to feeds. No computers were harmed in the making of this video.
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You know with all the web advances (is that the 2.0 web or the 3.0 web?) that the next version of OWA was going to rock. I am happy to say that it really rocks. A lot of people have blogged about the free Microsoft and Unisys Exchange 2007 demo account you can request. I got one quickly and fired it up. If anyone would like to email me my address is chris.haaker@exchange2007demo.com . This means you spammers! Let's see what this baby can do! One of the features I really love spending a fair portion of my day doing some form of email systems administration is the ability to open another user's mailbox from within the interface. No tricky URL magic is required! I love the pop-up friendly new mail and appointment reminders. I love the subtle styling. Can you tell I like it. Go see it for yourself and sign up here. I have to see if there is a phone number associated with it as well so you can all leave me a fax or voicemail message!
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An interesting option for Exchange server disaster recovery.
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From InformationWeek: “Tahiti places a small toolbar icon labeled "Work with Me" in the toolbars of Office applications that when clicked, launches Tahiti. In the current version, when a Word document is being worked on collaboratively, changes are tracked in real time and each change is marked with the name of the user who made the change. This update tracking capability doesn't appear to carry over to other apps like Excel and Powerpoint. However, the program also uses what Microsoft calls "personal mouse pointers" to see how others are using their mouse during the session. Along with Office documents, the Tahiti taskbar lets people share any application on their desktops.”
This is a new desktop information sharing application on a small scale. You can share parts of apps, your desktop or “handouts” with a group of up to 15 Internet connected users in real time. In some instances the full enterprise technology like LCS or Groove is overkill. This smaller and more elegant solution can fit the bill nicely for smaller groups. The website contains a ton of information but downloads are currently suspended until the beta is expanded. You can also find more information on Eileen Brown’s blog.
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I like Apple's computers, and if I had a few thousand lying around with nothing to do I might buy one. One thing I was never a fan of though, was Steve job's arrogance and open hostility towards Microsoft when on stage - and in advertising with regards to the delays surrounding Longhorn. Now it seems the shoe is on the other foot and I love these quotes from some of the Mac bloggers. From a ComputerWorld article:
"I've gotta admit, this puts Apple is an awkward situation, given how much flak they gave to Microsoft for their delays with Longhorn." -- irmongoose, MacRumors Forums
"Listen carefully. You hear that sound? That's the sound of the thousands of engineers at Microsoft attempting in vain to suppress their laughter." -- welshandrew, MacRumors Forums
"All of their whining about Microsoft delays is coming back to bite them with delay of iTV and Leopard." -- Puddleofudd, Computerworld
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You Had Me at EHLO just posted some information on Exchange 2007 SP1. This one stood out - it will be a bit before Windows Server 2003 SP2 is implemented. Of course, it will be a bit before Exchange 2007 is implemented!
Regarding the operating system, SP1 for Exchange 2007 will require Windows Server 2003 SP2. This will be a hard dependency for installation, so the operating system must be upgraded to Windows Server 2003 SP2 before you upgrade the Exchange 2007 RTM installation to Exchange 2007 SP1, or before installing a fresh build of Exchange 2007 SP1.
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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 my news, I prefer to read by feed as I find it more efficient not having my brain change cylinders from sports to tech to music item by item. I can keep it focused as I read a whole collection of news at once.
Now that I am piloting Vista and Office 2007 with integrated Desktop Search support, I wondered if this approach can work for mail as well. For as long as I can remember, I created a hierarchal folder system in Outlook and sorted my mail manually or with rules in to “buckets” of knowledge. If I needed an email from my boss, I knew exactly which folder to go look for it in. Perhaps the days of all those folders are past? Why not just keep all of my mail in one folder and allow the powerful properties of search to help me easily locate a message? On an enterprise level, I have a feeling there is some power here as well. Why the need to memorize or bookmark obscure URL’s or UNC paths? Index the enterprise and search for it. This isn’t a new idea, but it is one that the technology can finally support. Why do so few use it. Is it such a shift – to feel that all your data is just out there – unorganized – willy-nilly? I can see search driving the control freaks crazy. How do you really know everything is as or where it should be unless you look in your neat little file folder system and see it sitting there?
So this is what I am experimenting with now. As an Exchange administrator, I know having thousands of mail items in my Inbox will eventually catch up with me. However, email archiving should prevent me from feeling the ill effects of this. I have already cast off my PST shackles and imported them in to the archive. My precious PST’s! Right now it is taking some getting used to seeing all my alerts, MOM messages, personal and business emails floating in one folder. I want to see where this goes however. No zero mail inbox here! I haven’t been disciplined enough to do this with my files yet on my laptop. That is next though. Even though I remember to use Vista’s awesome search capabilities when I need a document, they are all still neatly organized in their safe little folder in Documents - One thing at a time.
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When I first learned a lot about the Edge Server role in Microsoft Exchange 2007 last year at TechEd, I asked about the reporting that would be available. IT managers and directors love to request metrics on spam, discarded email and volume and the Edge server seemed to be the place where the raw data would best be obtained. Today I see a Message Statistics Sample Agent on Microsoft Downloads.
From the official release:
The Message Statistics sample agent examines and records aggregate information about messages submitted to the Edge Transport server. The agent keeps this information in memory and writes it to an XML file when the transport service stops and each time the Timer object fires.
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There has been a hack and an official KB on how to run ADUC under Vista. And while not perfect, it is functional. No one I know can understand Microsoft's logic for not having this solved prior to shipping Vista.
If you also want to enable the Exchange extensions in ADUC there is one more step. After you do the things mentioned here, copy these three DLL's from a Windows 2003 Server (c:\%systemroot%\system32):
- netui0.dll
- netui1.dll
- netui2.dll
Then re-register regsvr32 \windows\system32\maildsmx.dll.
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I have been using Windows Live Writer since it was released (sorry BlogJet!) and have been generally very happy with it. I have two wishes for anyone on the product team that may be listening out in the blogosphere:
- Add a way to export the blog account settings. This will allow me to easily get my accounts back in when I reinstall my OS. If you can export the preferences (and all my pings) that would be great too!
- Add a menu entry to check for updates to the program. I hate having to depend on blog entries to find out when a utility has released an update. This software isn't major enough to hit the mainstream blogs and I don't want to track a blog for each piece of software I use on a regular basis. Let it check for me in the background when I fire it up.