Thoughtsofanidlemind's Blog

  • First Exchange 2013 training course appears

    December update: Now that Exchange 2013 is generally available, I want to make it quite clear that I neither endorse nor recommend the training mentioned below. This entry was posted to demonstrate the foolishness of launching a training course for a product some six months before it was actually available. If you…

  • HP’s (eventual) push into cloud services

    News that HP has launched its first public cloud services and will enter public beta on May 10 provoked my interest from many angles. As a former CTO of a major HP business, I had observed (and sometimes participated in) many attempts within the company to construct a cogent approach…

  • To MEC or not to TEC, where are my Connections?

    I think that there’s a fair chance that I am the only person to have presented keynote sessions at each of the Microsoft Exchange Conference (MEC), The Experts Conference (TEC), and the Exchange Connections conference. As such I might be in a reasonable position to offer some guidance as to…

  • March 2012 articles posted on WindowsITPro.com

    Here is the digest of articles that I posted to March 2012 during March 2012: iPhone meet Exchange 2010 posted on March 29 is a review of Steve Goodman’s new book iPhone with Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 – Business Integration and Deployment, which describes how administrators can take on the…

  • DMARC and the continuing fight against spam

    According to its web site, DMARC, (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance), is “a technical specification created by a group of organizations that want to help reduce the potential for email-based abuse by solving a couple of long-standing operational, deployment, and reporting issues related to email authentication protocols.” Anything that helps…

  • Reverting to Outlook’s AutoArchive feature

    A question arising from my post about some things to consider when you enable Exchange 2010 archive mailboxes asked how a user could revert back to Outlook’s AutoArchive feature if they decided that they really didn’t want to use the archive mailbox. The answer proved a little harder to discover, so here…

  • Exchange ActiveSync books – one coming, one in production

    There’s no doubt that ActiveSync has been an enormous success for Microsoft. Every important mobile device vendor has licensed ActiveSync and although the implementation of the features enabled by ActiveSync varies from vendor to vendor, it’s still true to say that ActiveSync has now become a premier protocol when it…

  • Windows 8: New O/S – new UI – not sure yet

    After returning from the annual MVP Summit in Redmond, it seemed like a good time to apply the Windows 8 Consumer Preview to a PC. My first selected victim was an old HP NW8230 (circa 2005-2006 vintage), as it seemed to be a good test of Windows 8 to see…

  • New French breathalyzer law

    [Updated to reflect changed regulations] Driving in France can present some unique challenges.  Drivers who are new to France who have to transit the massive roundabout at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris receive a rude introduction to some of the passion, terror, and luck that can surround the French…

  • Enterprise Vault, ALL-IN-1, and all that

    My recent post about the origins of Symantec’s Enterprise Vault product provoked a flurry of email conversations with many people, including the redoubtable Nigel Dutt, ex-CTO of KVS, the creators of Enterprise Vault. Nigel and I have butted heads over the year, mostly because he believes that English rugby is…