Tag Archives: Exchange

2009/08/13 · 16:47

MS releases Entourage EWS, changes name to Outlook

Big news on the Mac e-mail front.

First, Microsoft has released the Exchange Web Services (EWS) edition of Entourage, which you may remember from back in January. If you’ve been using the beta version, you will almost certainly be pleased with the vast improvements in sync speed since the beta. MS has also fixed a number of annoying sync bugs. Remember, the EWS version requires that you have Exchange 2007 SP1 with update rollup (UR) UR4 or later.

Next, MS announced today that the next version of Mac Office will contain… not Entourage but Outlook for the Mac. They have not yet announced the exact details of what “Outlook” means in the Mac context (except to say that it includes support for AD RMS), but the Entourage Outlook for Mac team is well aware of the major features that Outlook for WIndows has, and based on my discussions with them I am pretty optimistic about what we’ll see in the next version.

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2009/03/06 · 00:51

On the Microsoft Certified Master program

Brent Ozar posted an interesting piece on the value of the MCM credential. He argues that the value in being an MCM comes primarily to people who already have the ability to act as a force multiplier, making the people around them more effective. That’s one of the reasons that I’m happy that Devin’s earned his MCM; he has great potential to use what he’s learned to provide a field effect that will really help our customers.

I’m going to be teaching the Exchange UM portion of the MCM Exchange class, starting either in March or May. I’ve decided to hold off on going through the whole program until we’ve finished our move to Seattle; it’ll be much easier without the added hassle of being away from home. I’m tempted to skip the Exchange 2007 MCM and wait for the Exchange 14 version (which, of course, is a ways off), and instead go for the MCM OCS certification. Jens’ description is very tantalizing.

BTW, the MCM team has a great blog. If you’re at all interested in the MCM program, you should check it out.

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2009/03/03 · 12:46

Outlook 2007 programming chapters online

Long-time Outlook MVP Sue Mosher (who is a really interesting person besides!) wrote Microsoft Outlook 2007 Programming: Jumpstart for Power Users and Administrators
a year or two ago, and Microsoft just put three chapters online from it. If you’re doing Outlook development at all, this will probably be a valuable read. Sue points out that the chapter on working with item bodies has a lot of information that she’s never seen published anywhere else.

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2009/01/11 · 20:44

Two interesting virtualization news items

First, VMWare released a very interesting white paper covering their Exchange 2007 migration, which just so happened to include a lot of virtualization. They got a significant consolidation ratio in moving from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007, and they further improved it by packing 4 VMs onto each physical server. They’re using CCR in combination with VMware’s HA, DRS, and VMotion features. Perhaps the most interesting tidbit IMHO is that they’re using virtual tape drives to back up to virtual tapes using the ESE streaming APIs!
Second, the beta of Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 is available. There’s a lot of very tasty goodness there, including failover clustering, live migration, and 32-core support. Mmm, mmm, good!

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2008/11/26 · 15:22

Cutting off e-mail for former employees

Say you’ve fired someone, or laid them off, or sadly waved goodbye as they left of their own volition. How can you effectively prevent them from accessing your Exchange servers once they’re gone?

Most connections to an Exchange server are persistent, in the sense that once the client’s authenticated the connection will remain open. This allows the client to continue to send and receive mail… the exact opposite of what you want. You might think that disabling the Active Directory account for the user would do the trick, and it will indeed prevent other logons from succeeding. However, for about two hours, existing logons will continue to work. Here’s what to do to instead:

  1. Disable the user’s mailbox. This prevents new logons to the mailbox.
  2. Set the Send Prohibit quota to 0. This prevents the user from sending new mail; the quota change takes effect immediately.
  3. Move the user’s mailbox to another database. This will immediately disconnect all open mailbox connections from any client.

Voilà! Problem solved. (Hat tip: Scott Schnoll)

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2008/11/24 · 16:59

Gift ideas for system administrators

Every year, I write an Exchange UPDATE column with gift suggestions for your Exchange administrator (here are the 2007 and 2006 editions). This year I decided to try something different; I hit up HelpAReporterOut to put my query in front of about 35,000 people. The responses started to arrive almost immediately.

First responder: the folks at PCWeenies sent me a blurb about custom-drawn comics featuring your favorite admin. Neat idea, and very timely response. This is definitely a contender: it’s unique, and it would make a nice keepsake.

Best comment: “The best gift you can give a SysAdmin is a Faraday Cage that blocks cell phones, pagers, and WiFi: it cuts off all connection to the outside world. It’s _very_ popular with their wives, too!” I bet it would be popular! Sadly this respondent didn’t give me a source to actually buy them. Time to break out the power tools!

Least likely to actually be given as a gift by anyone I’ll ever work for: plasma TVs from a very large consumer electronics company who shall remain nameless. Great idea, but probably violates whatever office-Christmas-gift price policy your company has. If your company thinks it’s OK to give its Exchange admins such expensive gifts, please contact me for a resume.

Least likely to actually be given, runner-up: a one-question “stocking stuffer” e-mail exchange with a Hollywood psychic.

Coolest suggestion I never would have expected: handmade stamped-metal keychains. Check them out.

Claim most in need of testing: “[IgnaFire chocolate] morsels are SO strong in flavor and texture, that a very small amount satisfies. No one can eat this chocolate by the handful.” We’ll just see about that; I ordered some for Arlene, whose expertise in the world of chocolate is known throughout the world.

Apart from these, I’ve gotten some very cool leads for potential gift ideas, and I’ll be going through them for the remainder of the week to come up with the best list for next week’s column.

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