Thoughtsofanidlemind's Blog

  • Paris and Toulouse in one rugby weekend

    This past weekend I travelled to Paris and Toulouse to be the TV Match Official (TMO) for two games in the opening round of the 2011-12 Heineken Cup campaign. First up was the game between Racing Metro 92 and Cardiff Blues in Stade Colombes on Friday night followed by a…

  • Favorite Exchange 2010 books

    At the recent Exchange 2010 Maestro event in Greenwich, CT, I was asked to give my opinion about the set of Exchange 2010 books that are currently available on the market. Clearly I won’t comment about my own Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Inside Out book as a review of that…

  • Starting a voyage with Mac

    I’ve been using DOS or Windows PCs since the first IBM PC appeared. Over that time Microsoft-powered computers have infuriated and annoyed me on a regular basis but I think that I am now inured to the ways of Windows. Perhaps this will change with the advent of Windows 8 and the…

  • Fall Exchange Connections wrap-up

    I’m home from the Fall 2011 Exchange Connections conference and have successfully transitioned from the Las Vegas sunshine to the drab wonders of an Irish winter. I’m wondering whether I will be able to readjust back to both the weather and the change from the wonderful suite that I occupied…

  • Exchange 2010 compliance at Exchange Connections

    I’ve already published an article about the news about Microsoft’s PST capture tool that Ankur Kothari shared at the Fall 2011 Exchange Connections in Las Vegas. Here I’d like to record some of the interesting observations and Q&A interchanges that occurred at the session. In passing, the deck that was…

  • Exchange General Manager speaks at DevConnections

    Good technology conferences allow attendees to meet movers and shakers in the industry, specifically people who are relevant to the technical interests of the attendees. I think that the Exchange Connections conference has a good record in this respect and so it was that Kevin Allison, General Manager of Exchange…

  • Greenwich, Sybari, and debates about PC versus Mac

    This past week we (Paul Robichaux, Brian Desmond, and I) finished the last in the current series of Exchange 2010 Maestro events. We were in the Hyatt Regency in Greenwich CT, which proved to be a perfectly acceptable location. Attendees were focused throughout, enduring all that we could throw at…

  • Exploring Office 365 recipient limits

    Office 365 is available in a number of plans. Small business owners, like myself, find the low-cost entry point of Plan P1 very attractive while larger enterprises will find that the “E” plans better suit their needs (see this blog post for more information on the differences between Plans E…

  • RWC ends and I’m off to Greenwich and Vegas

    This coming week I’m travelling from Dublin to Greenwich, CT for the last in the current series of Exchange 2010 Maestro training events where I’ll be joining up again with fellow MVPs Paul Robichaux and Brian Desmond to deliver around twenty hours of lectures between Wednesday and Friday. The lectures are…

  • Date range exports with New-MailboxExportRequest

    From Exchange 2010 SP1 onward, a new method is used to export and import mailbox data. Instead of forcing administrators to run Outlook on a mailbox server so as to be able to use Outlook’s ability to read and write PSTs, Exchange 2010 SP1 contains brand-new code for PST access…