Thoughtsofanidlemind's Blog

  • Exchange 2013 public folders crippled by newly revealed limits

    A page appeared on TechNet on February 24, 2014 titled “Limits for Public Folders.” Not much news there, I thought, we all know that public folders have limitations, even the modern variety as used in both Exchange 2013 and Exchange Online. For instance, their lack of any ability to manage…

  • The tyranny of Flexbit’s five little lights

    Like most people, I probably could do a better job of maintaining my personal level of fitness. It’s not so long ago that I refereed rugby professionally (for instance, check out this highly pixelated video from a 1999 European Challenge Cup match between RC Toulon (France) and Ebbw Vale (Wales)…

  • Twenty-five years chasing the dream of enterprise social networking

    The fuss around Microsoft’s announcement of “the enterprise network and the future of work” at the SharePoint Conference (SPC14) in Las Vegas this week reminded me that we have been seeking to extract better information about the complex interconnections that exist between humans working in large corporations for many years.…

  • Exchange Unwashed Digest – February 2014

    The big news in February 2014 was the release of Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 Service Pack 1 (build 847.32), the much-awaited version long deemed as “the” software worthy for deployment in many corporate environments. SP1 includes many new features and enhancements that are worthy of debate and I’ll be covering…

  • On-premises Exchange and OWA for Devices

    Everyone got all excited yesterday with the announcement that Exchange 2013 Service Pack 1 (SP1) was available for download together with updates for Exchange 2010 SP3 and Exchange 2007 SP3 to allow those versions to play nicely with (but not be installed on) Windows 2012 R2 DCs and GCs. Microsoft…

  • Office 365 message encryption and HABs

    Some interesting things happened in the Office 365 world this week. First, Microsoft announced that message encryption is now being rolled out to customers to fulfil their goal of providing a method to encrypt messages sent to any recipient rather than just within a bounded organization. Second, the much-awaited hierarchical…

  • Outlook Web App 2013 and mail public folders

    Following up the post about migrating public folders to the modern version introduced in Exchange 2013, an entry in a TechNet forum asked whether Outlook Web App (OWA) supported shared calendars held in public folders. This came as a kind of throwback to me as it’s a long time since…

  • Adapting Exchange on-premises scripts for Exchange Online

    Since the introduction of PowerShell in the form of the Exchange Management Shell (EMS) in Exchange 2007, many scripts have been written to ease the burden of Exchange administration by automating common operations. Microsoft has broadened the scope and depth of EMS in every release by enabling management of more…

  • Do LinkedIn smartphone apps harvest contact data from Gmail?

    Is anyone else irritated by the way LinkedIn appears to harvest email addresses in an attempt to persuade you to transform correspondents into LinkedIn contacts? I’ve often wondered where LinkedIn got its information about people that I might like to contact but things came to a head yesterday when it…

  • Exchange Unwashed Digest – January 2014

    January is often a time for reflection. In my “Exchange Unwashed” blog over the past month I reflected on topics such as the need to carefully count Client Access Licenses, the impending deadline for support for some well-known and still-used products and why Managed Availability exists. Lots more happened too……