Paul's Down-Home Page

Microsoft today released the new version of their Application Analyzer tool for Lotus Domino applications. It features a new UI, better reporting, and a customizable XML-based system for customizing the analysis it does and the ensuing recommendations. This version of the tool uses the four-phase process that MS has defined and refined since the last App Analyzer release. There’s also an accompanying best practices guide. I’m looking forward to seeing customer feedback on these tools; the previous versions of the app analyzer had some shortcomings that I hope the new version fully addresses. In particular, I’m interested in seeing Paul Mooney‘s take on it.

Microsoft is making two pretty interesting announcements today. Stay tuned for more details.

Update: now you know what the first one is.

Windows IT Pro is now accepting session proposals for the Fall 2006 Exchange Connections conference. We’re heading to Las Vegas for the premier Exchange technical conference, and we’d like to hear from you! We expect the fall event to have a healthy dose of Exchange 12 content, plus our continued emphasis on real-world solutions for Exchange 5.5 and Exchange 2000/2003 administrators. This year, I’m co-chairing the show along with Kieran McCorry and Kevin Laahs, both of HP.

If you’re interested in speaking at the show, send your abstracts to me by March 21. We want proposals for regular 75-minute sessions as well as 1/2 day and full day pre-conference and post-conference sessions. Note that we have a limited number of speaking slots, and all participants must be able to present a minimum of three 75-minute sessions.

• Send a minimum of 3 session proposals (4 or 5 is ideal for discussion purposes)
• Include a short bio with your session proposals; if you have prior speaking experience, please include it
• Include any additional pre- or post-con session proposals, if applicable

Please adhere to the March 21 deadline as we need to make speaker and session selections right away.

The Lazy Admin has a great piece on the use of MSH profiles with Monad. If you’re exploring Monad, you should check it out, since profiles are the primary customization method for your interactive shell sessions.

Sweet! I just noticed this article on the Exchange team blog– RSA’s SecurID product can now be made to support Direct Push. This is a big win, because many organizations that want to deploy Direct Push also want strong 2-factor authentication.

Actually, I blogged about this on Monday morning, but my local copy of Ecto ate the post and just spit it back out this morning.

Terry Myerson drops science on public folders in Exchange 12 over at the Exchange team blog. High points: public folders will be supported until at least 2016, new apps should use the .NET framework and Windows SharePoint Services v3, and with Outlook 2007 + Exchange 12, you don’t need PFs for free/busy. (Interestingly, I don’t think that last tidbit has been publicly disclosed before Terry’s post).

Wow, I love Monad. That’s all I have to say about that.

Somehow I missed this, but MS last week announced the impending availability of a Windows Mobile version of Office Communicator. This may be the app that gets me to carry a Windows Mobile 5.0 device full-time, because having in-pocket access to presence, VoIP, and extended presence data for my contacts would be incredibly valuable. I’ll post more once I get the bits.

I’m working on my Exchange Connections presentation on Monad. There’s already a good bit of information out there (including the official Monad team blog), but I’m interested in knowing what you want to know about Monad and Exchange. Leave feedback in the comments, and whenever possible I’ll work the answers into my presentation.