Thoughtsofanidlemind's Blog

  • Using the Exchange 2013 cmdlet extension agent to populate mailbox settings

    For space reasons, this text was cut out of my Exchange 2013 Inside Out: Mailbox and High Availability book. I only found it again recently, so here it is… Many properties can be set to control exactly how a mailbox functions, but some are more important than others. All mailbox…

  • Latest Office 365 SLA results prove robust performance

    A recent question raised the issue of how well Microsoft has done against their vaunted 99.9% availability goal for Office 365. It’s a good question to ask because clearly all cloud services need to keep on proving that they can truly deliver a highly reliable and robust service if they…

  • Selecting the right compliance framework to use with Exchange

    Exchange 2010 upped Microsoft’s game when it came to the out-of-the-box compliance features available in the server. Exchange 2013 builds on that foundation to refine matters through features such as in-place holds and integration with SharePoint 2013; increased integration is available within Office 365 as Exchange and SharePoint Online share features…

  • Gmail as Gaeilge

    I was charmed to learn yesterday that Google has added Irish (Gaeilge) to the list of supported languages for Gmail (the local news report is here). Not that I speak much Irish, even after having it drummed into my skull for 14 years at primary and secondary school (teaching techniques were…

  • A brief history of Exchange Time Management

    It might just be me, but the sounds of bitter complaints by users whose calendars have been thrown into confusion by some combination of user error, Exchange server bug, and client mess-up appear to have quietened recently. At least, my mailbox is less full of sad tales of corrupted meetings…

  • Exchange Unwashed Digest – November 2014

    The normal flow of new features, updates, and bugs flowed across the “Exchange Unwashed” desk during November. Some of the bugs were puzzling, others were infuriating, but everything was interesting – at least to me. A clash between S/MIME and transport rules (Nov 27): Data Loss Prevention (DLP) was a big…

  • Brick backups and Exchange – not recommended

    I was recently asked whether a company should invest in brick-level backup for Exchange 2010. This request came as quite a surprise because I hadn’t run into anyone who was interested in this kind of technology for a number of years. Curiosity got the better of me so I agreed…

  • ePublishing for Technology: a new book on Exchange 2013 High Availability

    Time is both the greatest enemy and greatest friend of technical books. I know that seems like a statement which makes little sense, but truth lurks in these words. We all know that technology now evolves at an ever-increasing cadence. The upshot is that the traditional publishing cycle struggles to…

  • Creating a new address list for Exchange Online (Office 365)

    A question was posed in the Exchange IT Pro group of Microsoft’s Office 365 Network: “Is there any way I can add folders to directory on Outlook for example add a folder “staff” for users to click it and all the staff come up. I have added a picture. Thanks…