Well, the move isn’t 100% complete; I still have to install MT-Blacklist, tweak the CSS, and do a few other things of that nature. However, I’m well on schedule to give pair the boot by month’s end.
Tony Redmond’s newest book, not reviewed
The publisher was kind enough to send me a review copy of Tony Redmond’s latest book, Tony Redmond’s Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 : with SP1. I haven’t had a chance to even open it yet, but I can say this: at $37.77 from Amazon, and at 4.3 lbs, it comes in at a very respectable US$8.78/lb. By way of comparison, Stanek’s Exchange Server 2003 Administrator’s Pocket Companion costs $14.13/lb, and my security book weighs in at $14.34/lb. Tthat’s just because it’s packed full of so much information. Or something.
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Filed under General Stuff, Musings
Entourage and runaway transaction logs
Jeremy Kelly is reporting an unusual interaction between Entourage and Exchange 2003. The symptom: transaction log bloat. The problem seems to occur when an Entourage client tries to submit a message that’s too large for the maximum message size limit set on that user’s mailbox store. Instead of reporting the error (and not resubmitting the message), Entourage happily tries to send the message each time it connects. If the message is large enough, and if this goes on long enough, the server will eventually run out of log space. Jeremy recommends a temporary fix of turning off httpdav, removing the offending message from the client, and re-enabling httpdav; no word yet on an ETA for a better fix.
Filed under General Stuff, Musings
Everything you ever wanted to know about Smartphone development
I just ordered an AT&T Audiovox SMT5600, so I went digging for development information. Then I found this page, which will keep me in reading material until at least this time next year. Wow. If you’re at all interested in the .NET Compact Framework, this would be a great place to start.
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Filed under General Stuff, Musings
Blue State Blues
This guy ought to be writing professionally! Blue State Blues as Coastal Parents Battle Invasion of Dollywood Values:
“I’m not sure where we went wrong,” says Ellen McCormack, nervously fondling the recycled paper cup holding her organic Kona soy latte. “It seems like only yesterday Rain was a carefree little boy at the Montessori school, playing non-competitive musical chairs with the other children and his care facilitators.”
“But now…” she pauses, staring out the window of her postmodern Palo Alto home. The words are hesitant, measured, bearing a tale of family heartbreak almost too painful for her to recount. “But now, Rain insists that I call him Bobby Ray.”
Even as her voice is choked with emotion, she summons an inner courage — a mother’s courage — and leads me down the hall to “Bobby Ray’s” bedroom, for a firsthand glimpse at the psychic devastation that claimed her son.
She opens the door to a reveal a riot of George Jones CDs, reflective ‘mudflap mama’ stickers, empty foil packs of Red Man, and U.S. Marine recruiting posters. In the middle of the room: a makeshift table made from a utility cable spool, bearing a the remains of a gutted catfish.
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Filed under Musings
SMT5600 thoughts
Amazon is offering the Audiovox SMT5600 smartphone for a net payment of $25, e.g. you get a new phone plus $25. I played with one of these for a few minutes at the AT&T store in Ann Arbor last week, and it’s a very impressive device. The screen is brilliant and crisp, and the phone is much smaller and lighter than my trusty 7135. It also features Bluetooth, which would be extremely useful for wireless headsets and for tying to my laptop. (It also has some other cool features, like Windows Media Player 10, that I probably wouldn’t use). I have a few concerns, though.
First, I’m very used to entering text with a stylus; I’ve had a Palm for about seven years now. I don’t do a lot of text entry– mostly just appointments and such, so I think (but am not sure) that I’d be OK with using T9 on the phone keypad, but I won’t really know that until I have a chance to try it.
Second, I’ve been very satisfied with Verizon’s wireless coverage, both here and when I travel. I don’t know how good AT&T’s local coverage is, because I don’t know anyone here who has it, but (at least to me) it doesn’t matter how good the phone is if I can’t make or receive calls when I want to.
Next, it would mean going back to Outlook for syncing, instead of Entourage. That’s a problem because I often use Entourage to create notes and tasks while working, and Entourage can’t sync them with my Exchange server. That might be a deal-breaker. There are at least two Mac sync utilities for Windows Mobile devices: Missing Sync (which explicitly says it doesn’t support the SMT5600) and PocketMac (which, I’ve been told, has stability and support difficulties).
Finally, I’d have to replace some of the applications I now use. This probably isn’t a big deal, since most of them are games, but there are a few (like TikTok and Directory Assistant) don’t seem to have Windows Mobile counterparts. I’m also comfortable with the way DateBk5 integrates calendar and to-do data, and I don’t know if the mobile version of Outlook has similar features. In fact, it’s not even clear to me if you can install third-party apps on these devices; it seems to vary by carrier.
So, if you’re reading this and a) you use AT&T, b) you have an SMT5600, or c) you work for the MacBU, feel free to leave comments answering the above points 🙂
Update 1: turns out that Windows Mobile doesn’t natively support Outlook notes anyway. There’s at least one third-party app (SmartphoneNotes) that does, but I don’t know if it works on the AT&T phones.
Update 2: Two of my 3sharp coworkers wrote to say that AT&T coverage in our Redmond office is poor, so that’s a minus. On the other hand, the Windows IT Pro people want an article on Exchange ActiveSync, for which I need a device, so it looks like I’ll get one and take advantage of AT&T’s 30-day trial period. I found solutions for managing tasks and notes on the Smartphone, so if I can resolve the sync difficulties I should be golden.
Filed under General Tech Stuff
Two Windows Mobile webcasts
Next week is Windows Mobile webcast week. There are two webcasts of particular interest for Exchange 2003 administrators: one on best practices for Windows Mobile deployments, and one for Windows Mobile/Exchange troubleshooting.
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Filed under General Stuff, Musings
DCT-6412 first impressions
I’ve spent a short while playing with the DCT-6412 since I got it. Here are a few random observations; I can’t really say this is a review, because it isn’t (and isn’t meant to be) comprehensive.
- It does what it claims: provide DVR/PVR functionality for HDTV cable signals. On that grounds alone, I’m happy to pay the extra $5/month (which means that, after 200 months, I’d come out ahead buying an HDTiVo).
- The iGuide interface is reasonably functional for watching live TV. It’s much faster, and better-looking, than the interface on the older DCT-6100 series boxes. As a bonus, you can choose a color scheme from a list of eight or so predefined sets.
- In general, the TiVo interface makes it much easier to perform common tasks with fewer button presses.
- There’s a popup “quick menu” that lets you quickly select from the most common functions; this appears as a thin strip at the bottom of the display superimposed over whatever you’re watching. Combine this with the “favorite channel” list and you have an easy way to jump between HDTV programs.
- The program status bar (or what Moto calls the flip bar; it shows recording status, time remaining, whether the program is paused, etc) is remarkably ugly.
- You can toggle the front-panel display between a channel display and a clock. This is a great feature, since the clock is bright and easy to read. However, when the unit is recording, or when you pause live or recorded TV, the display changes to “rEC” or “PAU” respectively.
- Speaking of pause: if you pause a program, the 6412 will happily sit there paused forever. It still seems to record OK while paused, but it doesn’t jump back to live TV after a preset interval like the TiVo does.
- The interface for choosing programs to record is fairly terrible. It’s easy to record a show you’re watching (just press the remote Record button) or one you see in the guide (press Select when it’s highlighted, then Select twice more to schedule and confirm the recording). However, the “search by name” function is buried, and it has a bizarre multiple-choice selection metaphor that I’ve had trouble getting used to.
- There doesn’t seem to be an easy way to schedule a recording for a particular time and channel (e.g. Sunday, 8-9pm, channel 650). This is such an obvious feature that I just must not have found it yet.
- No Season Pass feature, nor anything like unto it. However, there is a nice listing of HDTV programs.
- The 6412 has a 14-day guide, but at least in some cases it’s missing programs. Example: yesterday (10 November) I wanted to record a program that airs on 22 November. It wasn’t in the guide yet. I haven’t reproduced this so I don’t know what’s causing it yet.
I’ll post more details and impressions once I’ve had a chance to use the unit more. So far, I haven’t spent a lot of time watching recorded programs because of Halo 2 work.
Filed under HDTV and Home Theater, Reviews
Happy birthday and Semper Fi
From the fine folks at GoDaddy, a Marine Corps birthday card. I’ll be registering all my domains there in the future.
New Live Communications Server blog
Tom Laciano has a new blog focused on Live Communications Server. Based on what he’s posted so far, this will be one to watch. For example, this post on using certificates for mutual TLS authentication in LCS 2003 is pure technical gold. I plan to follow it regularly.
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Filed under General Stuff, Musings
My last word (for now) on GOExchange
I’ve had a long series of email discussions with Troy Werelius, CEO of GOExchange’s parent company. I’m now convinced that the sales rep didn’t intend to be dishonest, but that he was trying to bolster his case that eseutil is complex (true), dangerous (true), and not for use by the unwary (true). He pointed out that it was unfair of me to criticize GOExchange as “little more than a scheduling engine that wraps around eseutil” without having used it. That’s a fair criticism, although in my defense he has been reluctant to talk about what the product actually does do. To avoid confusion, I’ve removed my earlier post.
However, let me make something perfectly clear: I do not think that it is a good idea to run eseutil except in certain specific, well-defined circumstances. It is not a tool for routine or casual use. Reasons to use eseutil include fixing a damaged database or running an offline defrag, neither of which are routine maintenance operations. I think that’s where the central point of disagreement between my viewpoint and Troy’s lies.
Troy is working on arranging a technology demo for the Exchange MVPs that will help all of us understand better what the product actually does– I’ll post my impressions of its functionality after the demo.
Filed under Smackdown!
Huntsville and Nazi rocket scientists
Interesting article on the front page of the WSJ today: “In Huntsville, Ala., Rocketeer’s Legacy Has Complex Echoes“. The article talks about the fact that von Braun, Stuhlinger, and other key players in NASA’s early booster development were participants (with varying degrees of culpability) in Nazi Germany’s industrial program. The primary source for the article’s claims of heavy Nazi involvement on the part of the scientists is Linda Hunt, a “media critic” who wrote a book on the topic. I haven’t read it, but it certainly didn’t get good reviews. It’s not clear to me that it would have been better to prosecute the lot of them immediately after WW II; doing so would certainly have made the not-yet-prosecuted much more reluctant to work here instead of for the fUSSR. However, it’s unpleasant to be reminded of the kinds of compromises that governments routinely engage in, One cool note, though: the article quotes my former coworker at NTI, Dave Cornutt,
And good riddance
So, John Ashcroft got fired:
John Ashcroft, one of the most powerful, controversial attorneys general in American history, abruptly and reluctantly quit yesterday… Sources said Ashcroft submitted his handwritten, five-page resignation letter before Election Day but was “energized” after Bush’s victory and told the White House through his aides he was willing to stay on indefinitely as the nation’s top cop.
The White House said no. Ashcroft will remain in office only until his successor is chosen.
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Filed under FAIL
DCT-6412 arrives
If you need me, I’ll be in front of the TV. The Buckeye installer just dropped off a shiny new DCT-6412 HD DVR. It doesn’t have a full set of program guide data yet, so I can’t set up all the scheduled recordings I want. However, I did set up a few test recordings, so we’ll see how well it works. The iGuide interface is a huge improvement over the crappy TV Guide guide for the DCT-6100, although it’s not quite as sharp as TiVo’s interface. More on the unit after I’ve had a few days to wring it out and read the manual.
Filed under HDTV and Home Theater
MT-Blacklist 2.0 installation instructions
They stink (not least because they tell you to use the directory structure of the zip archive to figure out where to put things). However, if you read these instructions instead, you will be on the short track to enlightenment.
Filed under Musings
