Thoughtsofanidlemind's Blog

Category: Technology

  • Rugby, weapons, and conferences

    Lots has been happening over the past two weeks with trips to Las Vegas to speak at “The Experts Conference” (TEC), Flayosc (south of France) for some vacation, and England for rugby. It’s time to consider some of the incidents encountered along the way. I landed in Las Vegas late…

  • An ActiveSync logo compliance program: How nice!

    On April 13, Microsoft announced details of their ActiveSync logo compliance program. While it’s taken me a little while to comment (other things go in the way), I think this is a good idea because it should rein in the tendency for ActiveSync to rapidly degrade to become the wild…

  • Two conferences call for sessions for Fall 2011

    The two conferences that cover topics of interest to Exchange, including Exchange itself, SharePoint, and Windows, have issued calls for sessions for their Fall conferences. TEC’s Fall event is in Frankfurt, Germany from 17-19 October while Fall Connections is in Las Vegas from October 31 to November 2. The TEC…

  • Coupons for Exchange 2010 Maestro training now available

    I guess there are coupons for just about everything these days so why wouldn’t I be surprised to see our marketing partners in Penton Media releasing coupons for the Exchange 2010 Maestro training events that Paul Robichaux and I are running in San Diego, London (England), and Greenwich CT.  Click…

  • Doing the right thing on Twitter and Facebook

    I realize that many of my friends outside the U.K. won’t be habitual readers of “The Telegraph” so might have missed the opportunity to update their social skills through the release of Netiquette: Debrett’s Guide to Twitter and Facebook. Of course, they also probably don’t know that Debrett’s has a…

  • Review: Spring 2011 Connections

    The Spring 2011 Connections event took place at the JW Marriott Grande Lakes complex in Orlando from March 27-30. I like this event because it’s a one-stop opportunity to get a broad overview of what’s happening in different aspects of the Microsoft-centric industry – ASP, SilverLight, SharePoint, and of course,…

  • ALL-IN-1 trivia quiz from 1985

    ALL-IN-1 was a forms-driven Office Automation (OA) product released by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). Its origin were in software called the Charlotte Package of Office Systems Solutions (CP/OSS) written in 1981-82 by DEC Software Services in Charlotte, NC. The software was subsequently released by DEC as ALL-IN-1 1.1 in late…

  • The spectrum of technical writing

    I am often asked what is the difference between writing a blog post and an article that’s published in a magazine such as Windows IT Pro. In response, I think that a spectrum of technical writing exists that goes something like this: The most basic (and often very useful) contribution…

  • Be careful with VM snapshots of Exchange 2010 servers

    Those who are considering virtualizing production Exchange 2010 servers should read the fine print contained in the TechNet article “Exchange 2010 System Requirements“. In particular, this text is crucial: “Some hypervisors include features for taking snapshots of virtual machines. Virtual machine snapshots capture the state of a virtual machine while…

  • Preparing for Spring Connections and first impressions of Office 365

    Earlier this week Brian K. Winstead, the author of the Exchange and Outlook blog on http://www.windowsitpro.com, contacted me to ask about the keynote that I’ll be giving at the Spring 2011 Exchange Connections event at the JW Marriott Resort hotel in Orlando from March 27 to 30. The resulting conversation…