Monthly Archives: February 2008

Sweet PowerShell lovin’…for free!

And yes, that’s “free as in beer,” not “free as in what some people think all information wants to be.”[1] Frank Koch and Marcel Trümpy of Microsoft (in Switzerland) have created not one, but two Windows PowerShell ebooks, and you … Continue reading

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Posted in 3Sharp, PowerShell | Leave a comment

DPM book hot off the presses

Early this week, Ryan and I received our authors’ copies of Mastering System Center Data Protection Manager 2007, the book we co-wrote about, well, mastering DPM 2007. Amazon says it’s in stock, so if the topic is at all of … Continue reading

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Posted in 3Sharp, DPM | Leave a comment

New books!

WOrking on my latest book, Mastering System Center Data Protection Manager 2007, was a long process. However, Monday I got to experience my favorite part of the writing process — getting the box from the publisher with the author’s copies. … Continue reading

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Posted in Computers, Writing | Leave a comment

Passwords in the 21st century

I am sick and tired of the shoddy programming practices most companies still have in place today with their websites. I can understand the desire to not provide certain types of downloads to users unless they have an account that … Continue reading

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Expanding Alaric’s world…and getting mine expanded in return

Recently, we decided to do something about a problem we’ve been noticing with our kids. While they’re both avid readers, they both tend to re-read the same books — tens of times serially if we’d let them. Alaric was not … Continue reading

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Posted in People, Recreation, Writing | Leave a comment

Webcast on Unified Communications

Tomorrow I’m going to be giving two webcasts for Quest on What You Need to Know about Microsoft Unified Communications – one at 9am EDT, the other at 2pm EDT. (Yes, that’s 6am and 11am here, so my morning tomorrow is … Continue reading

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Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange, OCS | Leave a comment

Received in the mail: Exchange Server 2007 training from TrainSignal

A couple weeks back, I received an offer for a review copy of the Exchange Server 2007 video training from TrainSignal. I, of course, gleefully accepted. Over the next few days, I’ll be checking it out and will let you … Continue reading

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Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange | 1 Comment

Liveblogging the Unified Communications Voice Ignite conference, day 5

Last day. It’s been a blast, but my brain is getting full. (You can see my day 4 notes here.) 9:45: When you’re deploying a multi-site Edge server deployment, be aware that you can’t have multiple sites with the Access Edge role … Continue reading

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Liveblogging the Unified Communications Voice Ignite conference, day 4

Just 2 days left — on with Thursday! (You can see my day 3 notes here.) 09:57: The RTAudio codec suite is pretty cool. Finally found out why there’s all those new devices (like USB headsets) that are marked as Microsoft UC-compatible. Regular … Continue reading

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Proof I’m in Sydney…and working…

Chilling at the conference. The lovely brownie-tart thingies they fed us today. My work blogs posts.    

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Posted in Life, Work | Leave a comment

Fighting PKI inertia

I’ve noticed something for a while now — people are really reluctant to install a proper PKI system. If you’re a Windows-based organization, I have three words for you: Get over it. The Windows Certificate Service (WCS) is powerful and … Continue reading

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Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange, OCS | 1 Comment

Liveblogging the Unified Communications Voice Ignite conference, day 3

Good morning! Back for day 3. (You can see my day 2 notes here.) 09:13: Back when I first started doing OCS, the vision included “hybrid“ gateway devices which included the Mediation Server role functionality in the gateway. Well, they exist … Continue reading

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Posted in 3Sharp, Exchange, OCS, PowerShell | 2 Comments

Interesting definitions

The speaker just said, and I quote, “regular expressions, which are fairly straightforward.” That’s, um, well, interesting. And wrong.

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Posted in Computers, Humor, Work | Leave a comment

Thoughts from the break part 1

So, I’m in Sydney for a training conference that I’m talking about in my work blog if you’re interested. There’s a lot of interesting small differences that have more of a mental impact to me than the big ones: The … Continue reading

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Posted in Life, Music, Work | Leave a comment

Okay, this is cool

If you like the Discworld novels, you’ll think this is cool. If you like cake, you’ll think this is cool. You might think this is cool anyway. The Discworld as a cake Thanks, Nick! 

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Liveblogging the Unified Communications Voice Ignite conference, day 2

Good morning! Back for day 2. (You can see my day 1 notes here.) 09:13: Talking about dialing requirements. Just heard the best explanation of E.164 I’ve heard — very simply, it’s a format for writing phone numbers that makes … Continue reading

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Liveblogging the Unified Communications Voice Ignite conference, day 1

Greetings from Sydney, Australia, where I’ll be spending the next week (along with Kevin) at the UC Voice Ignite event. (If you’re one of my readers and you’re here too, look me up.) I want to capture some neat bits … Continue reading

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Heading for the underside of the world

In just a few more hours, I’ll be on my way to do something I’ve never done before — cross the equator. I’m just going to kayak down to the big black line floating on top of the ocean, nip … Continue reading

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Posted in Life, Work | Leave a comment