Thoughtsofanidlemind's Blog

  • Another STC award for Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Inside Out

    The nice people at Microsoft Press have been in contact with me again to let me know that my book Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Inside Out has now received an “excellence” award from the Society of Technical Communication (STC), the professional body for people who work with technical publications covering subjects from…

  • Ten years on: The HP-Compaq merger

    On May 3, 2002 HP announced that it had completed the acquisition of Compaq. The new HPQ stock began trading on May 6 as the new company launched into action around the world. For those of us involved in the merger, it certainly was an exciting time. Based on an…

  • Should Exchange 2013 force an Active Directory upgrade?

    One of the interesting debates at the Exchange Q&A session at TEC 2012 was the question whether the upcoming release of Exchange 2013 should force companies who want to deploy the new software to upgrade their Active Directory infrastructure to a level higher than Windows 2003. Specifically, the proposal was…

  • Exchange Keynotes at “The Experts Conference”

    One of the signs of a better conference is the quality of the keynotes. I’m not qualified to offer an opinion about the Monday morning keynote for the Exchange section of TEC 2012 as I was the speaker. You can download a copy of my keynote for your reading pleasure. Now that…

  • April 2012 articles published on WindowsITPro.com

    Here’s the digest of articles published on my WindowsITPro.com blog in April 2012. FAST searching coming to Office 15 server applications (April 26) reports that the Office 15 wave of server applications (Exchange 2013, SharePoint 2013, and Lync 2013) will share a common enterprise search capability powered by the FAST technology acquired…

  • On the road again… to San Diego

    This week I traveled from Dublin to San Diego to attend “The Experts Conference” (TEC). The conference organizers took care of tickets and I was routed via JFK on Delta rather than my normal choice (probably Aer Lingus to Chicago and onwards on United). The good news was that Delta surprised me…

  • The Citadel of St. Tropez

    Most people who visit St. Tropez on the French Riviera probably think about the glamour side of the town – its up-market shops, the restaurants dotted around the port that can charge an extraordinary amount for an ordinary pizza, the yachts that broadcast the fact that their owners drip with cash,…

  • A billion? Maybe good value if they’re good patents

    At first glance, the news that Microsoft has agreed to pay AOL more than $1 billion for a trove of 925 patents (plus access to 300 patents kept by AOL) might seem to be an expensive purchase to some. Microsoft then offset some of their expenditure by selling access to some 600…

  • Exchange 2010 SP2 RU2: Deep-dive into what’s in this roll-up update

    On Monday, April 16, Microsoft released roll-up update 2 (RU2) for Exchange 2010 SP2. There was nothing strange or unusual in this process because it follows Microsoft’s practice of issuing cumulative roll-up updates for Exchange at regular intervals. On the same day, Microsoft (or rather, the splendidly named Customer Experience…

  • Exchange Connections 2012 – Your chance to present

    Following on from my recent post about the three major U.S.-based conferences that feature a lot of content about Microsoft Exchange Server, I note that the nice people at Penton Media have issued a call for papers for the Exchange Connections 2012 event, which is due to take place in…