2007-06-12 · 14:51

Microsoft Data Encryption Toolkit for Mobile PCs

At long last, the secret is out: Microsoft now has a solution toolkit to help companies make sure that their sensitive data is properly protected on mobile PCs. Last week at TechEd, they formally announced the Data Encryption Toolkit for Mobile PCs, which combines a thorough analysis of the BitLocker and Encrypting File System features of Windows with a set of prescriptive instructions on how to use BitLocker and/or EFS to protect your company’s data. There’s also a nifty tool, the EFS Assistant, that you can deploy to automatically scan for files that should be protected, then encrypt them with EFS.

3Sharp was responsible for the entire document set; I worked with David Mowers on the security analysis and wrote the planning and implementation guide, and Paul Flynn wrote the bulk of the EFS Assistant administrator’s guide. It’s great to have this toolkit out in the world, because I really believe it will help people avoid mishaps like what happened to TJX (so far, they’ve spent $20 million in 1Q 07 alone, with more to come!)

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2007-06-12 · 13:34

A new competitor to the iPhone

I’m in phone-shopping mode again. I was thinking about getting in line for an iPhone, but I think this new phone suits me to an R a T.

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Filed under UC&C

2007-06-12 · 09:51

The people of TechEd

From my friend and fellow Exchange MVP Andy David, a handy field guide to spotting attendees at TechEd (and Exchange Connections), plus a few additions from Andy Webb, Tony Murray, and Melissa Travers:

  1. The Clothes Horse: Puts on the official Teched T-Shirt as soon as he registers. Wears a different vendor shirt every day, even at the attendee party.
  2. The Vendor Whore: Visits every booth and allows his badge to be swiped. Flashes and glows all week. Thinks the booth babes like him.
  3. The Wanderer: Moves from session to session., never staying for more than 20 minutes. Rates each presenter poorly.
  4. The Yes Man: Concurs with everything the presenter says, nodding his head in agreement, shaking his head “No” when told that is something you shouldn’t do. Raises his hand whenever asked.
  5. The Continental: Wears male Capri pants every day.
  6. The Nodder: Dozes through each session.
  7. The Tapper: Breaks out his laptop at the beginning of each session and reads email, IMs and browses the web. Never looks up and leaves 5 minutes before the session ends.
  8. The Carpet Hugger. Similar behavior to The Tapper, except this species heads directly for the floor against the wall and the nearest power outlet to power up his laptop to do his work.
  9. The Shutter Bug: Takes pictures of every session, every vendor, every booth babe and then posts to a blog that no one ever visits.
  10. The IT Guy: Wears vendor shirts from previous Techeds to every session and events, including the elusive “IT Hero” Hawaiian shirt. Takes the first bus back to his hotel once the free beer runs out.
  11. The Inquisitor: Makes his move to the microphone half-way through a session. Looks annoyed when asked to wait till the end. Asks a question without an answer.
  12. The Attendee: Usually only seen at the attendee party. Typically female, they look like they would rather be anywhere else but there.
  13. The Tropical Breeze – The Hawaiian shirt wearing, flip flop sporting retrosexual male who makes the rounds to every party (invited or not) until the free beer and the free food run out. And occasionally attends a late afternoon session.
  14. The Gadget Kid. More holsters than Dirty Harry. No visible social skills and hasn’t actually spoken since the age of 12, but has well developed thumbs.
  15. The Assassin hunts daily for that one choice piece of product information, contact, meetup, product team intro that couldn’t be found any other place or time. Is satisfied if the week produces at least 4 hits.
  16. The Sycophant won’t ask a question at the microphone, but will badger a speaker for 20min after a session and follow them down the hall until stopped by security at the speaker lounge.

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2007-06-12 · 09:44

Microsoft frees managed default folders

Great news: Microsoft is changing the Exchange 2007 licensing model so that you can use managed default folders (part of the “messaging records management” feature set) with the standard client access license (CAL). Originally, to use managed folders you had to pony up for the Enterprise CAL, which also includes Forefront, Exchange Hosted Filtering, unified messaging, and premium journaling. You also still need the Enterprise CAL if you want to use managed custom folders. Still, this is a welcome change. I still think the Exchange licensing model is complex and confusing to customers, but now it’s a bit better.

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2007-06-12 · 07:56

Dear Apple: Welcome to Windows

Yesterday Apple released a beta version of Safari for Windows. Later the same day, David Maynor released information on six bugs (4 denials of service and 2 remote code execution bugs) that he’d found. What a nice way to welcome a new browser to the Windows platform 🙂
More to the point, this highlights how much things have changed in the Windows security world. It’s hard to write a secure browser. Microsoft has put an enormous amount of energy and effort into securing IE 7 and the components that use it. Are there still security flaws in it? Probably (in fact, almost certainly). However, IE7 is still, literally, years ahead of Safari in that respect. There are no shortcuts to building secure applications, as Apple is now learning.

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2007-06-04 · 10:50

Heading to TechEd

I’ll be at TechEd 2007 in Orlando from today until Wednesday. I’m presenting Wednesday afternoon (2pm, SEC323, about how Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange works). I also have a ton of things to see and people to meet; my first stop will probably be the TLC to see the Tanjay, Catalina, and RoundTable devices that MS will be showing off. See you there!

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2007-05-30 · 09:03

Flash (Modesitt)

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

I really wanted to like this book. It got good reviews, and it was written by a well-known author whose works I hadn’t sampled before. Unfortunately, I found it turgid, slow-moving, and flat-out boring. Couldn’t finish. Off to the donation pile it goes.

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2007-05-29 · 16:50

High-altitude, high-voltage helicopter work

Wow, this is a fascinating video clip of a guy whose job it is to fix high-tension power lines. Not for the faint of heart! (It’s from Straight Up: Helicopters in Action, which I may now have to order!)

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2007-05-29 · 13:15

Osterman calls shenanigans on Exchange migration claims

Glad to see someone else in the press picking up on this: Michael Osterman just posted an article wherein he points out that claims that 25% of the Exchange installed base will migrate to Linux are, shall we say, overblown.

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2007-05-29 · 13:03

Creating a public folder store for Exchange 2007 free/busy

So I’ve gotten three or four requests for detailed instructions on how to fix the situation that happens when you say “no” when Exchange 2007 setup asks if you have any pre-Outlook 2007 clients. In that case, Exchange doesn’t create a public folder store, but you need one for legacy client support. To fix this problem, here’s what to do in a brand-new Exchange environment:

  1. Launch the Exchange Management Console
  2. Expand the Server Configuration node, then select the Mailbox node and select the server you want to create the PF store on.
  3. Under the Database Management tab, select the storage group that you want to contain the public folder database.
  4. In the Actions pane, click New Public Folder Database. Give the database a name and a path, then click New.

Once the database has been created, stop and restart the MSExchangeIS service.

If you already have Exchange servers, you shouldn’t need to do this. If you decide that you want your Exchange 2007 server to publish free/busy and OAB information through public folders, follow the steps above, then see this article for information on how to add replicas of the needed folders to the Exchange 2007 server.

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2007-05-29 · 09:22

Cool visualization of real estate prices over time

This video shows home prices, adjusted for inflation, since 1890– as a roller-coaster ride.

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2007-05-23 · 13:25

Using SharePoint 2007 to hold Exchange 2007 journal reports

I looked all over the place to find documentation on how to set up Office SharePoint Server 2007 to hold journal reports generated by Exchange 2007. I finally found it after paging through about 10 zillion Google results. Here, for your edification, is the topic I found: “Plan e-mail message records retention” in the MOSS 2007 planning & architecture docs. With a little luck, soon Google, Live Search, et al will pick this article up so that searching for something sensible like “sharepoint 2007 exchange journal reports” will find it.

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2007-05-18 · 09:43

Back Spin (Coban)

by Harlan Coben

Not bad for an airplane book. Coban tells his story with great pacing and snappy dialogue, but there are too many coincidences and (never thought I’d say this) son gratuitious plot twists that are visible from about a mile away. I suspect his later Myron Bolitar books are probably better; next time I’m in an airport perhaps I’ll find out.

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2007-05-16 · 11:33

Long time, no blog…

Wow, it’s been nearly two weeks since my last blog post, and longer than that if you count the time since I actually posted anything interesting. Consider this a catch-up post for all the stuff that’s happened since the beginning of April or thereabouts.

Family reunion: after the New York roadshow event, I flew down to Jackson and met up with the rest of the family; we drove down to Alexandria for a day and thence to Houma. We had a wonderful time seeing both halves of the family and eating some amazing food. (I still haven’t unloaded my pictures from my camera, but I’ll try to get that done in the next few days.) It was especially good to see some of the Houma relatives whom I’d never met (like Jody & Eric’s kids) or hadn’t seen in a long time (pretty much everyone else!) Disclaimer: I still haven’t unloaded my camera pictures or photocopied the 1″ stack of family history data that Aunt Debby gave me. Yes, I’m behind.

Exchange Connections: we left New Orleans on April Fool’s Day and headed to Orlando for Exchange Connections. Great show, although I didn’t see as much of it as usual. Arlene and the boys came with me, and we spent a fair amount of time at Disney. I’d stacked all my sessions on one day, so apart from a few breakfast and dinner meetings with people I didn’t get out and about as much as I usually do.

Disney World: wow. We’ll never go during spring break again, I hope. It was insanely crowded. David and I rode the new Expedition Everest ride, and someone was kind enough to hook us up with some Dream FastPass tickets at MGM so we could get in to some of the more crowded rides (like Lights, Motors, Action!) The “Finding Nemo” musical at Animal Kingdom was excellent, and we enjoyed the dining as well. A special treat: we stayed at the Renaissance Orlando near Sea World for two nights. It’s undergoing renovation, but the guest rooms had already been redone, and they were superb! (Arlene and the boys made a side trip to Sea World one day. Their verdict: not worth the money or bother.)

Tons of work: where to begin?! Recounting all the things I’ve been doing would be too much like actual work. I can say that the Data Encryption Toolkit is in the bag and will be launched very soon (good thing, given that even companies that should know better sometimes lose data). The Exchange roadshow is nearly done (tomorrow, it’s DC; yesterday it was Phoenix), and I have a few other things in work that are keeping me maxed out until about the end of June.

Everything else: of course, there’s ongoing family life too. Tom’s baseball season officially kicked off, Matt’s soccer season is in full swing (or full kick, or whatever), and karate continues apace.

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2007-05-16 · 10:39

Phone-tastic: Microsoft releases details of new OCS 2007 endpoints

I’ve been waiting for this since Thanksgiving. Microsoft’s finally started releasing details of the devices its partners are building for use with Office Communications Server 2007. It’s important to note that individual partners, including Polycom, NEC, and LG-Nortel, are building these, but that Microsoft is providing the “Communicator Phone Experience” software for some devices. CPE is a radical departure from the standard model of having a button-driven user interface on the phone that talks to the PBX; CPE-equipped phones have a friendly Communicator-like GUI and rely on direct communications with the OCS server to get configuration and presence information. (In fact, you log on to these phones using your Windows credentials– how cool is that?)

Some pictures to whet your appetite are at Microsoft’s UC press gallery. I’ve requested review units of the Polycom phones and will report back here once I’ve had a chance to experiment with using them.

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