Thoughtsofanidlemind's Blog

Category: Technology

  • Seat 25G to Seattle

    I’m just back from spending the week in Bellevue and Redmond, where I attended Microsoft’s annual MVP Summit. MVP stands for “Most Valuable Professional” and essentially it’s a group of advocates for Microsoft technology organized by interest. I’m an Exchange MVP and have been since 2003 or thereabouts, but this…

  • Whoops! Where’s my Inbox?

    One of the weaknesses inherent in cloud-based services was displayed once again on February 28 when Gmail service was lost to some 500,000 users, or as Google expressed it, 0.29% of the total user base (I love the way that small percentages are used in an attempt to disguise the…

  • Personal experience: the perils and pain of losing Internet access

    I thought that I was all set for the Exchange 2010 high availability webinar that I co-presented on behalf of Marathon Technologies on February 24 – or so I believed. The slides had been done, we had run through how webinars work using the GoToMeeting tool (easy to use –…

  • Some odd Google search results

    One of my ex-colleagues at HP was doing some research into how Exchange 2010 performs replication. He plugged in a search request into Google and got some interesting results back, which he just had to share with me (below). I don’t know whether to be appalled or pleased with the…

  • First look: HP E5000 Messaging System

    On January 21, I blogged about the joint HP-Microsoft announcement of the HP E5000, the first messaging appliance-type system specifically designed to run Exchange 2010. This week I’ve had the chance to spend some time in Cupertino, CA working with HP and Microsoft representatives from the team that created the…

  • Lies, vile lies, and statistics

    I was in the middle of a perfectly pleasant briefing on some high availability solutions last week when a slide was presented that asserted that “32% of recovery operations fail”. The statistic apparently came from research done by a market research company that I won’t name here. I’m sure that…

  • Predictions for 2011: The Exchange Market

    On Tuesday, I had an interesting call with Matt Gervais of TechTarget to discuss my views on what will happen for the Exchange market in 2011. Matt is busy talking to some other folks and will share his best assessment of the distilled wisdom of the oracles in an article…

  • First appearance of an Exchange 2010 Messaging Appliance

    On January 19, 2011 HP and Microsoft announced the HP E5000 Messaging System for Microsoft Exchange. The name is a mouthful but the important point is the creation of a solution designed to make Exchange 2010 easier to deploy. This product is part of a set of four appliances that…

  • Spring Connections 2011

    I’ve been attending Connections events for years, mostly since the demise of the late lamented Microsoft Exchange Conference (MEC). While MEC was an official Microsoft conference and so benefited from the Microsoft marketing muscle and access to engineers and program managers, it eventually foundered on the twin rocks of a…

  • Thoughts on MyPublisher

    I have used MyPublisher to create photobooks, Christmas cards, and calendars since 2005. I can’t pretend to have done any great research before selecting MyPublisher. The choice came about as a form of blessed serendipity as I read a review of home publishing software in the Wall Street Journal while…