Thoughtsofanidlemind's Blog

  • Changes to retention tags in Exchange 2010 SP1

    It’s always good to have your material checked by someone who is detail-focused. Over the weekend, Paul Robichaux, Brian Desmond, and I have been updating our presentations and other material for the Exchange 2010 Maestro Seminars. In particular, Brian is very detail-oriented and does a great job of going through…

  • Exchange 2010 Inside Out: Final chapter emerges from technical review

    After some 16 months of work, today I had the distinct pleasure of returning chapter 17 of Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Inside Out, also available at Amazon.co.uk to Microsoft Press after receiving it late last night from the copy editors. Chapter 17 will now join the other sixteen in becoming…

  • Day three of Exchange Maestro training in Boston

    We completed the first Exchange 2010 Maestro seminar in Boston today. Three days of intense training seems to have passed in the blink of an eye. Paul and I are completely shattered by the event and Brian has already left for Anaheim where we start another seminar on Monday. My…

  • Second day of Exchange Maestro training in Boston

    We began day 2 of the Exchange 2010 Maestro seminar with a review of the topics covered in day 1. A spirited discussion occurred about the notion of “backupless” Exchange. In other words, some commentators have advanced the thought that the advent of the Database Availability Group (DAG) and the…

  • First day of Exchange Maestro training in Boston

    Paul Robichaux, Brian Desmond, and I commenced our first Exchange 2010 Maestro seminar in Boston today. 41 attendees came along. This was a nice turnout that was helped by some “scholarships” funded by Microsoft and HP (Thanks to both companies!). About 55% of the attendees run Exchange 2003, 35% run…

  • Exchange 2010 SP1 “maestro” seminars start!

    This is a big week for Paul Robichaux and myself because we start our first Exchange 2010 SP1 “maestro” seminar in Boston on Wednesday morning; we then follow things up with a similar event in Anaheim from Monday to Wednesday next week. This is a joint production with Penton Communications,…

  • Games in Paris and Toulon

    I’ve just returned from a swing through France where I was the TV Match Official (TMO) for games in Paris (Stade Francais v Crociati Rugby in the Amlin Challenge Cup) and Toulon (Toulon v Ospreys in the Heineken Cup). These were the first matches for the teams in this season’s competitions.…

  • Exchange 2010 problems due to insufficient access to Active Directory

    Like every version since Exchange 2000, Exchange 2010 has a huge dependency on Active Directory. Essentially, if you don’t deploy and manage Active Directory in the right way, you have little or no chance of being successful with an Exchange 2010 deployment. If you disbelieve me, simply break out the…

  • On email conversations

    The email gods have spoken and Google has listened: Gmail now allows you to turn off conversation mode and display items in folders in the same way that clients have done since the year dot. The announcement was made on September 29 and the ability to turn off conversation views…

  • The simple EWS Exchange Email Client

    Fellow MVP Glen Scales has created a really nice example of the power of Exchange Web Services (EWS) to build an Exchange 2010 email client that you can run through a PowerShell script (for more details of the script, see Glen’s blog). I like this code a lot because it…