Monthly Archives: January 2007

In with the old, in with the new

I’ve had two technological experiences this morning that can be summed up thusly: I love living in the future! The first involved the new VoIP PBX we had installed earlier this week. The installer kindly left the TAPI integration driver … Continue reading

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So wrong, yet oddly compelling

A YouTube clip of David Lee Roth performing Van Halen's classic "Jump." Nothing odd there, right? Try it as a bluegrass song. I blame John Scalzi.  Share this post:ShareFacebookDiggRedditEmailStumbleUpon

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The Tenth Doctor

We recently finished up watching the 2006 season of Doctor Who. I walked into this season with a chip on my shoulder; Christopher Eccelston, the ninth Doctor, was in my mind the perfect Doctor and frankly I resented losing him after … Continue reading

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A nine-word poem

My friend Mir was telling me about a writing challenge she's been working on lately on one of her web forums; someone posts nine words and then people write a poem incorporating them. I decided to do something different: write … Continue reading

Posted in Spirituality, Writing | 1 Comment

And now I make the Internet disappear

A lot of my work at 3Sharp involves working with virtual machines. (And when I say “a lot” I really mean “the majority.”) When it comes to working with virtual machines, I have a choice: I can use Virtual PC … Continue reading

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Hankering to deploy Exchange 2007?

The busy folks at HP are wasting no time in getting their Exchange 2007 consulting groove on. They’ve got a ton of guidance on using Exchange 2007 on HP hardware (servers and storage). It makes for interesting reading, seeing the … Continue reading

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Gaps in PowerShell cmdlet coverage

As I’ve been working more and more with PowerShell, I’ve discovered a few gaps in coverage in the cmdlets it offers. Most of my PowerShell noodling has been with Exchange 2007, so represents holes in the Exchange Management Shell extensions, … Continue reading

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ISA Server rules for segregating Exchange 2007 Edge and Hub Transport

As promised earlier, here’s a quick look at the ISA rules to put in place to properly segregate deploy Exchange 2007 Edge Transport servers in the perimeter network. These rules depend on some fundamental assumptions: The only hsots that should … Continue reading

Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange | 1 Comment

Hosted backup MX services considered harmful?

I’m subscribed to a slowly growing number of mailing lists and services that are aimed at keeping journalists and other such folk informed of trends and developments in the IT industry. Last night on one such list run by Ferris … Continue reading

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Usul no longer needs the weirding module!

We work pretty hard at 3Sharp, but we don’t work hard all the time. Our new offices have lately been plagued by an infestation of tiny remote-control helicopters. Well, all I can say to that is I need one of … Continue reading

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A neat trick to increase Outlook performance

Thanks to this nifty article on Exchange 2003 hacks by Exchange MVP Rodney Buike, I learned about the Contig tool. This tool, freely available from Microsoft as part of the SysInternals offerings, offers the ability to perform file-level defragmentation. This … Continue reading

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One interface or two: an Edge case

I’d managed to overlook this during the beta cycle, but yesterday I ran across the following statement in the release Exchange 2007 docs: “An Edge Transport server that is in the perimeter network typically has two network adapters: A network … Continue reading

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Only in Seattle

Stephanie told me about this posting on Craig’s List Seattle. I didn’t believe her that it was real, so I had to go find it for myself. Posting here because who knows how long the entry will be active, and … Continue reading

Posted in Humor | 2 Comments

My take on the iPhone

iPod. Mac mini. MacBook Pro. OS X. These are Apple products that I have acquired in the last several years and that cause me much love, because for the most part, they just work. So what do I think about … Continue reading

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Don’t overlook this feature of Exchange 2007

There’s one nice feature in Exchange 2007 that I suspect will get overlooked far more than it deserves, and that’s the built in support for the Windows Server 2003 SP1 Security Configuration Wizard. Out of the box, the SCW provided … Continue reading

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Managing public folders in Exchange 2007

In general, I love Exchange 2007. I love Exchange 2007 with a love that is brighter than the aggregate IQ of a science fiction convention and stronger than the body odor of the RPG section of that same convention[1]. However, … Continue reading

Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange, PowerShell | 4 Comments

Using PowerShell to sort mailboxes by size

This weekend I was playing with the Exchange Management Shell while performing some troubleshooting on our Exchange 2007 system and discovered some fun combinations of cmdlets I thought I’d share. First, let’s start with a command that lists all of … Continue reading

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Prose, Pros, and Wannabes

Elizabeth Bear did a very bad thing: she started a new LJ community called novel_in_90. The basic premise is that of NaNoWriMo — commit to working for a specific amount of time on the same writing project, building the discipline … Continue reading

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Dr. MacBook (or how I learned to stop right-clicking and love the touchpad)

Score another UI/usability win for Apple. They’ve done something I never thought anybody could ever do: not only get me to use a trackpad on a laptop, but to like it — to the point that I don’t miss the … Continue reading

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Exchange Connections Spring 2007 is coming!

It’s already that time of year, when presenters start putting together PowerPoint slide decks. This year, the spring session of Windows/Exchange Connections is April 1-4 and we’ll be back in Orlando, FL (although not, sadly, at the Disney Swan and … Continue reading

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Maybe now the PIX SMTP screener won’t suck

Read this press release on Friday: SAN JOSE, Calif., January 4, 2007 – Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) – Cisco today announced a definitive agreement to acquire the privately held company, IronPort Systems, Inc. of San Bruno, Calif. IronPort is a leading … Continue reading

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Drive-by memeing

First, I would like it to be known that I am only doing this under protest. I don’t usually participate in blog memes, because most of them are damned silly. However, I got tagged on this one by Paul in … Continue reading

Posted in Music, People, Recreation, Work, Writing | Leave a comment

Happy new year!

Greetings, everyone. I hope you had a great holiday season. Mine was pretty decent; I received a Macbook Pro and survived the office move. I also got some good news today. Back to Exchange blogging! Share this post:ShareFacebookDiggRedditEmailStumbleUpon

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