Thoughtsofanidlemind's Blog

  • Lions Tour – before the first test

    The noble readers of this blog might have noticed that I have been quiet recently, mostly because my wife and I have departed on a three-week tour of Australia to follow the British and Irish Lions as they play three test matches against the Aussies. The lack of activity is…

  • Exchange Unwashed Digest May 2013

    May 2013 produced some thoughts about site mailboxes, CU1 improvements, planning tools, and even a Windows Phone application in the Exchange Unwashed Blog. Here’s what happened in detail. Using an Office 365 free trial domain to test software (May 30): Sometimes it is just difficult to get all the parts…

  • 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…

  • A stop in Sainte-Marie-du-Mont

    On the 69th anniversary of D-Day, I guess it’s appropriate to post about an enjoyable interlude we had this week en route to Cherbourg to catch the Irish Ferries boat back to Ireland. As usual, we had some time to kill and decided that a walk on a beach followed…

  • Enjoying a vineyard visit in Blaye

    Sometimes serendipity takes hold and brings you to enjoyable experiences. So it was last week in Blaye, close to Bordeaux and center of one of the wine-growing regions that cluster around that city. After enjoying a rather good bottle of the local wine, we were introduced to its maker, Alain…

  • 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…

  • Sending cash via Gmail: an invitation to scammers?

    Am I the only one to have a small nagging doubt about Google’s announcement that they now allow Gmail users to send money to each other? Given the commentary that I have read so far, it seems like I am. Perhaps it’s my grumpy frame of mind but maybe it’s…

  • Low book prices don’t reflect the work involved

    I wonder whether I should feel offended that Amazon.com has priced Paul Robichaux’s book, “Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 Inside Out: Connectivity, Clients, and UM” at $30.21 whereas my book “Microsoft Exchange Server 2013 Inside Out: Mailbox and High Availability” is cheaper at $27.26. I pointed out to Paul that his…

  • Exchange Unwashed blog digest March 2013

    I have been remiss in updating this site with information about posts to my “Exchange Unwashed” blog on WindowsITPro.com. All I can say is that WindowsITPro.com has been through the trauma of a content management system (CMS) upgrade. Like all technology migrations, people (like me) have been affected by user…

  • Office 365 support case resolved – thankfully!

    On April 29, I reported the poor support experience I had received as a result of the upgrade of my Office 365 tenant domain from the Wave 14 release to Wave 15. Essentially, a support call reported on April 8 had produced zero progress, despite many messages to and fro…