Thoughtsofanidlemind's Blog

Category: Cloud

  • Exchange Unwashed Digest – November 2013

    November 2013 was quite a month for me. I was all set to go to the annual Microsoft MVP Summit in Redmond when I had a sudden and so far unexplained collapse (kind of like a personal reboot) on November 15 that resulted in a fifteen-day stay in hospital. Although…

  • Using an intelligent Twitter stream to keep up to date

    I am often asked how I track new developments and information about Exchange, Office 365, Windows or the other technologies in which I am interested. My response is “by using Twitter intelligently”. There’s no doubt that an extraordinary amount of dross is generated and shared daily on Twitter. People who…

  • Evolving Office 365 monitoring tools

    I’ve been playing around with the Office 365 Admin app, now available for Windows Phone 8 and due to be available “soon” for Android and Apple iPhone. Think of the Windows Phone users like myself as the advanced beta testers before the more popular devices get their teeth into the…

  • Exchange Unwashed blog digest October 2013

    October began with the Exchange Connections conference in Las Vegas and ended with some thoughts on whether to go to TechEd or MEC next year. In between, I contemplated some of the questions raised by attendees at Exchange Connections as well as some thoughts that came up in my own…

  • Exchange Unwashed Digest: August 2013

    August proved to be quite an entertaining month in terms of the topics that were available to be covered in Exchange Unwashed. Here’s my take on the posts: The sad, curious, and brain-dead demise of TechNet subscriptions (August 1): While they are replacing CEOs and buying mobile phone companies with…

  • Why are people surprised when Google uses their data?

    I’m not sure that the degree of shock being expressed within the press about Google “reading” email is altogether justified. A good example is the London Guardian’s headline of “Don’t expect privacy when sending to Gmail”, arising from a defense filed against a claim that Google violates U.S. wire-tap laws.…

  • Exchange Unwashed digest for July 2013

    July – hot summer (or so it should be) – and vacations. But the need to publish posts on my Exchange Unwashed blog on WindowsITPro.com continues, so here’s what appeared in July. Interesting approach to public folder support in Outlook Web App 2013 (July 2): The month began with some…

  • Microsoft cloud revenues and investments

    Two recent reports attracted my attention. First, at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference, Steve Ballmer noted that Microsoft runs more than one million servers in its datacenters. Second, Microsoft CFO Amy Hood said that Office 365 revenues are now running at $1.5 billion annually. Both figures are impressive but as always,…

  • PRISM, Internet Data, Email, and Auntie Mary’s messages

    In 1948, it seems like George Orwell was quite prescient when he wrote “There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment” in his novel “1984”. Apple used the vision painted by Orwell to help launch the Macintosh in 1984. Much to…

  • Exchange Unwashed digest: April 2013

    April 2013 saw the appearance of Exchange 2013 CU1 to release the restrictions that had previously stopped anyone running a “legacy” version of Exchange from installing Exchange 2013 into an existing organization. More stuff happened during April too, and some was even discussed in my “Exchange Unwashed” blog, as explained…