This is big and rich: Microsoft announced today that they’ve licensed the Exchange ActiveSync protocol to palmOne for use in their new, officially-unannounced line of Treo smartphones (including the 650). I want one.
Time for a new phone? Outlook unclear
PalmOne hasn’t announced it yet, but the new Treo 650 might very well be my ideal phone: it has the 320×320 screen I’ve been lusting after since Arlene got her Tungsten E, plus a thumb keyboard, plus Bluetooth, plus a camera. Best of all, it has Exchange ActiveSync. Various sources differ on which carriers will support it when it ships; Engadget says that Verizon will carry it, and over at TreoCentral there are several posts on Sprint and T-Mobile availability.
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Filed under General Tech Stuff
A welcome new spam trend?
Is this the start of a new trend? Vioxx Recall Leads to Worldwide Spam Reduction.
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Filed under General Stuff
Death knell for Sender ID?
Now, this is interesting: the IETF Sender ID working group is apparently defunct. This is more or less the equivalent of that milestone of farce comedies, the divorce due to irreconcilable differences.
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Filed under General Stuff, Musings
Gluten-free candies
For some reason, MasterFoods (the fine folks who bring us, among other things, M&Ms) don’t have a MasterList of their gluten-free products on their web site. I called their customer care hotline and spoke to Tammy, who told me that they don’t make the list broadly available. However, when pressed, she admitted that plain and peanut M&Ms (but not the crispy kind, which are nasty anyway) are gluten-free, as are Snickers, Skittles, Starburst, Milky Way bars, Dove bars, and 3 Muskateers bars. So, if you need Arlene, you might be able to find her by following the trail of forbidden candy wrappers…
Filed under Friends & Family
MS announces Data Protection Server
This Computerworld story (and the related MS press release) announce the arrival of a new Windows product: the Data Protection Server (DPS). DPS is basically a distributed tool that puts agents on the file servers you want to protect; the agents then run scheduled disk-to-disk backups. Depending on how this is implemented, this might be a significant improvement over the kind of ad-hoc disk-to-disk backup schemes most small and medium organizations use. DPS combines replication and point-in-time copies, which places it squarely into competition with products from Legato and Veritas (among others).
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Filed under General Stuff, Musings
Microsoft releases Exchange Best Practices Analyzer tool
This is very, very cool: the Exchange Best Practices Analyzer is a new tool from Microsoft that checks your Exchange infrastructure for good design practices. To be more specific, the tool investigates various parameters (including some from AD, a few perfmon counters, the IIS metabase, and your DNS) to see how well your operational configuration conforms to generally accepted best practices.
Filed under General Stuff, Musings
Request a library book with one click
Jon Udell has a very, very cool bookmarklet: click a button while visiting Amazon (or any other page that contains an ISBN in its URL) and automatically request the book from your local public library. (Way Public Library uses iPac as their catalog system, so that’s the button to pick on Jon’s page). What a great piece of work!
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Filed under General Tech Stuff
Plaxo: I told you so?
Thanks to alert cow-orker Tom Meunier, we see that my earlier prediction about Plaxo has indeed come true, sort of.
Filed under General Stuff
Another SURBL-compatible Exchange filter
The newest version of XWall supports SURBL.
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Filed under General Stuff
Controlling Always-Up-To-Date timing
I’ve been fiddling with Exchange ActiveSync lately, and I’m actually pretty impressed with it– it’s a neat feature. If you’re not familiar with it, it basically sends periodic notifications of new mail to your Windows Mobile device; when the device receives the AUTD message, it wakes up and pulls new messages from your Exchange server. This gives you more-or-less continuous access to the contents of your mailbox.
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Filed under General Stuff, Musings
Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 98 Threat Mitigation Guide released
At long last, Microsoft’s released a document that describes what you can do to mitigate threats to your network from Windows 98 and Windows NT 4.0 machines: the Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 98 Threat Mitigation Guide.
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Filed under General Stuff, Musings
Another Exchange SURBL filter
I just got a note from Martijn Jongen mentioning that he has a SURBL filter for Exchange.
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Filed under General Stuff, Musings
Save Betamax
Congress is considering legislation called the INDUCE Act. It would, not to put too fine a point on it, outlaw many of the common devices found in your house. This might seem drastic, but the basic point is pretty clear. From SaveBetamax.com:
The Betamax VCR died more than 15 years ago, but the Supreme Court decision that made the Betamax and all other VCRs legal lived on. In Sony vs. Universal (known as the Betamax decision) the Court ruled that because VCRs have legitimate uses, the technology is legal—even if some people use it to copy movies. Of course, the movie industry was lucky it lost the case against VCRs, because home video soon became Hollywood’s largest source of revenue. And the freedom to use and develop new technology that was protected by the Betamax decision set the stage for the incredible growth in computer technology we’ve seen in the last few decades.
The INDUCE Act would overturn the precedent set in Sony v Universal, creating huge financial liabilities for any company that makes technology that might be used to copy copyrighted material. Goodbye, TiVo. Goodbye, iPod. Goodbye, home DVD burner. Etc. The SaveBetamax folks are asking people to sign up to call their Congressional reps at a preset time; by scheduling calls, they hope to produce a steady flow of calls during the day. I signed up, and (IMNSHO) you should too. Don’t take my word for it, though; even Mr. Rogers (God rest his soul) agreed with the Betamax decision.
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Filed under HDTV and Home Theater
I’m proud of my dad
I missed something important at this past Friday’s Rotary luncheon: a chance to tell my dad how proud I am of him. He has been instrumental in helping the Perrysburg Christians United food bank get a new building. He was instrumental in persuading his employer, Rudolph Libbe, to sponsor the construction efforts as part of its 50th anniversary celebration. This is a big deal, since PCU has been wanting a building for, oh, ten years or so. As much as I give him propos for his role in getting this done, I am more proud of him for the quiet and sustained nature of his generosity. He is not flashy or showy about the good works that he gets done: he just gets his hands dirty and does ’em. He is always quick to volunteer his time and talents to worthy causes, and he’s diligent about encouraging others to support worthy and charitable causes. By doing so, he’s making Perrysburg a better place, setting a terrific example of selflessness and service for his fellow Rotarians and– more importantly– for my young sons. Thanks, Dad.
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Filed under Spiritual Nourishment
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