Category Archives: General Tech Stuff

So, Eric Lai quoted me in another Computerworld article, this one on slow Outlook performance. However, he left out a couple of important parts of what I actually said. I told him that I’ve had problems with one particular Exchange account (I use three) on one of the several machines that I use Outlook 2007 on. The machine in question happens to be a Windows Vista (x86) machine that I bought in January, flattened, and did clean installs of Vista and Office on. Other Exchange profiles on the same machine work fine. The same Exchange account on Outlook 2007 on my XP machines work fine. Removing and recreating the profile on the Vista machine doesn’t solve the problem, hence my comment about there being something I don’t understand about the problem in this case. The Exchange server in question doesn’t belong to me, so I can’t run any of my usual troubleshooting tools on it.

I was also careful to point out to Eric that I’m not an Outlook MVP, and that he should speak to some Outlook MVPs for his story. That’s too bad, as I’m sure they would have been able to give a better perspective on that actual performance issues involved.

I just stopped at the Verizon store adjacent to my hotel in Seattle and grabbed a USB720 EVDO modem modem to use with my MacBook Pro for our presentation events. So far, I’m underwhelmed. I used the DSL Reports speed tester and got 331 down/169 up on the MacBook Pro, followed by a second test of 235 down/33 up. By way of comparison, my Vista machine got 1019 down/249 up on the hotel Internet connection. I’ll test the speed of the built-in EvDO modem on the Thinkpad later.

As I learn more about Dance Dance Revolution Universe, I keep reading how important it is to have a really good dance pad. Apparently the Cobalt Flux is the way to go, but it doesn’t work with the Xbox 360. For $300, it had darn well better be (and no, I’m not going to buy one!) However, in the spirit of Google love, here’s a link to instructions on how to make a mashup of the Cobalt and the soft pad that comes with the DDR Universe bundle that will work on the 360. Some soldering is involved (and let’s not forget that $300, either.)

Yes, it’s that time of year again: time to submit session proposals for Exchange Connections! Our fall show is from 5-8 November in Las Vegas at the Mandalay Bay Hotel. This year the submission process is slightly different. If you’re interested in speaking, visit http://www.deeptraining.com/devconnections/abstracts/ to submit your abstracts. Please do not mail them to me.

A few ground rules:

• You need to submit at least 3 abstracts, but I encourage you to submit more than 3 to give us more flexibility in choosing sessions.
• Speakers will be chosen within a few weeks of the closing date, which is currently 3/10.
• All selected speakers will have their travel expenses (air + hotel) reimbursed and in addition will be paid a stipend of $400 per talk.

What kind of talks should you propose? Anything having to do with Exchange (including DR, security, migration, and best practices), Live Communications Server/Office Communications Server, or related topics. The more technical, the better! (If you plan to repeat sessions from a previous event, please make sure you update the title and abstract to reflect the latest in the Exchange world.)

Please, no vendor “pimp sessions”. If you work for a software or hardware vendor, feel free to propose technical sessions that aren’t focused on your product. If you work for a PR firm, please feel free to have your principals submit technical sessions.

If you have any problems with the submission process, or any questions, please feel free to ping me. Otherwise, fire up those browsers and get busy!

Update: I changed the stipend info; it’s $500 if you’ve presented at more than 5 events, and $400 otherwise.

Technorati Tags: Exchange 2007, ExchConn

In last week’s UPDATE, I mentioned the need to patch all your Exchange clients, not excluding Windows Mobile. The process for doing this by hand is pretty tedious. Thankfully, Microsoft today released an all-in-one DST update that contains a single CAB file (plus instructions) that will update your device to have correct time zone information. You need to install the CAB file after you update your Exchange mailbox’s calendar; once it’s installed, you’ll need to change the time zone on your device manually to make Windows Mobile notice the change. Then you’ll need to change it back.

Via this post on Kirk’s blog, I found this terrific collection of customizations you can apply to the standard Cocoa text editing engine. The article is quite detailed, and it’s tough sledding if you’re not already an experienced Mac user. However, it features some nifty customizations, including the ability to use incremental search for Cocoa text fields. Good stuff.

T-Mobile has a pretty sweet deal: free T-Mobile wi-fi service for Windows Vista users from now until April 30. Go here from your Vista machine to sign up.

Wow, so many uses for this: a desktop 3-D printer for around $2500. You can’t yet use one of these to print out parts for a second copy, but we’re not that far off.

So, a couple of weeks ago I bought a refurbished Mac Pro from Apple. It came with a single 250GB SATA drive, with 3 open SATA bays. I had Devin send me two of our spare 250GB SATA drives from a previous project, with the intention that I would create a striped RAID set to hold my VMware Fusion virtual machines.

I popped the two disks in, rebooted the computer, and fired up Disk Utility. After formatting the two disks, I attempted to create a RAID array, but Disk Utility wouldn’t see the second disk. In the process of fooling around, I created a mirrored array and added the first new drive to it, but I couldn’t add the second drive. In frustration, I did a low-level format on drive #2; when the format completed, I was able to add it to the new volume, so I copied my files over to it and went about my business.

Technorati Tags: Mac OS X

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I have long been complaining about Microsoft’s inconsistent use of the word “cluster”, which has a specific meaning: a set of interconnected computers that can share work and have at least some redundancy and failover capabilities. The Windows network load balancing folks call their solutions “clusters”, as do the Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS) team. This is needlessly confusing to customers. Thankfully, I noticed that the Exchange team is doing something about it– if you check out the Exchange 2007 docs, they are now (properly IMHO) labeling their clusters as “failover clusters” to disambiguate clustering-for-redundancy from clustering-for-load-balancing. Yay!

Technorati Tags: Exchange 2007

From an anonymous source commenting on the new Apple iPhone:

I’m looking forward to the iPhone Shuffle which calls one of your contacts at random every time you hit Send.

The iPhone looks seriously shiny, but because it doesn’t support HSDPA I don’t think I want one– I’ve gotten too used to Verizon’s excellent local EvDO coverage. The better an “Internet communicator” the iPhone turns out to be, the more painful its lack of HSDPA will be. (Update: David Pogue sure drank the Kool-Aid.)

As for the Apple TV: meh. I’m not that excited about it, given that it looks like a way to pay $20 for a DRM-encrusted sub-DVD-resolution movie that requires a Mac to play it back. I’d rather have an HD DVD of the movie, or, failing that, I can rip it to my ReadyNAS and stream it through the Xbox 360. Or so I’m told; that doesn’t actually work for me yet… perhaps that’s the Apple TV’s appeal.