Carpe Diem: Flaphead@Home

Exchange 2007: Offline Address Book

Paul Flaherty — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 12:04:00 GMT

So been automating some global configuration in Exchange 2007 today and wanted to share this. I need to enable web distribution of the oab and couldn't find the Powershell "check box". But cracked it. You need to just populate the VirtualDirectories entry and it "checks" the Enable Web-bases distribution. The cheat was this: $xOABs = Get-ClientAccessServer | Get-OabVirtualDirectory Set-OfflineAddressBook 'Default Offline Address Book' -VirtualDirectories $xOABs So we get all the CAS servers and pipe...(read more)

Microsoft Virtualization and Licensing Announcements

Paul Flaherty — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 14:47:58 GMT

Interesting Source: http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2008/08/19/449621.aspx Today Microsoft announced some significant changes to its licensing and support policies for applications in hardware virtualization environments. There are two key parts of the announcement worth highlighting for Exchange customers: Microsoft now supports Exchange Server 2007 SP1 running Hyper-V or hypervisors validated under the Microsoft Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP) . Microsoft is waiving its 90-day...(read more)

440 Login Timeout when using OWA 2007

Paul Flaherty — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 15:36:00 GMT

If you try and access OWA 2007 you may see this error 440 Login Timeout It would appear that this error happens if the IUSR_<Servername> and / or IWAM_<Servername> accounts are disabled on the server. Using Computer Mangement on the server, navigate to Local Users and Groups and select the disabled acount and using right click select properties Now uncheck "Account is disabled" Once you have done this for the IUSE and IWAM account run and IISReset All should be back to normal!...(read more)

Server Installation and Automation Guides

Paul Flaherty — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 10:10:52 GMT

Theses are the mutts nuts. Good old Ross Smith IV up's the bar again. Check them out here http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2008/08/07/449497.aspx and here http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc533547(EXCHG.80).aspx ...The following Exchange Server installation guides can be used as a starting point for formalizing your server build procedures. These guides are generic in nature and must be modified to meet the needs of your organization. Furthermore, it is recommended that every step...(read more)

The Edinburgh Festival: Fringe - Silent Disco

Paul Flaherty — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:39:52 GMT

So after the races we had a couple of hours to kill before Silent Disco . Now for those trendy festival loving people, you will know what Silent Disco is all about (Silent Disco are due to attend the Reading Festival this year). Any way this is the most bizarre disco I have ever been to, but was awesome. Basically it has two DJ's at the front, and you are given a set of headphone with two channels (one for each DJ). That's it! You select the music you want to hear and...(read more)

The Edinburgh Festival: Fringe - Fringe Racenight

Paul Flaherty — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 09:31:19 GMT

So Tuesday night we headed over to Musselburgh Racecourse for the Fringe Racenight . It was a shame it was raining. It was a 6 race event and was quite good fun, despite the rain. The Fringe Racenight is billed as an evening at the races with a difference. Alongside all the fun and excitement of horseracing, you can enjoy a host of Fringe entertainers performing at the racecourse. This might have been how it was billed but we only saw two acts and they only performed one song/act,...(read more)

toyshoplondon.com

Paul Flaherty — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 21:25:32 GMT

Boys and Girls, old and young, I wanted to share with you that the "Toy Shop" is back up and running now! They stock a good range of educational books, have a new craft section for A4 paper/card and A1 paper/card for school projects etc. A new party section with balloons, banners and a helium balloon filling service. For the Kids they have Ben 10, Pokemon, WWE, Lego, Playmobil, Puppy in my Pocket, Scalextrix, Airfix and much more.... So check it out .. the website ordering isn't up yet,...(read more)

Exchange 2007 Sizing Cheat Sheet

Paul Flaherty — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 13:53:24 GMT

Rui does it again, this is a sweet article, read it and weep! Source: http://www.msexchange.org/articles-tutorials/exchange-server-2007/planning-architecture/exchange-2007-sizing-cheat-sheet.html Implementing a complete Exchange 2007 solution requires not only good planning, but also a good understanding of all the technical requirements and a good knowledge of the several Exchange Server roles. Sizing an Exchange 2007 Organization is not for the faint of the heart, although I consider it much easier...(read more)

Forefront for Exchange SP1 Rollup 3 has been released

Paul Flaherty — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 13:40:24 GMT

Just found this up on the Forefront blog http://blogs.technet.com/fss/archive/2008/08/11/forefront-for-exchange-sp1-rollup-3-has-been-released.aspx Forefront for Exchange SP1 Rollup3 has been released. The fixes that are included with in Forefront for Exchange SP1 Rollup3 are as follows. Prior to full publication of Forefront for Exchange SP1 Rollup3 we are making our customers aware that this release of Forefront for Exchange is now available. Please Contact Microsoft support...(read more)

The Edinburgh Festival: Fringe - Faulty Towers the Dining Experience

Paul Flaherty — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 13:07:30 GMT

Well, well, well. We have been trying like mad to get tickets for this, so rang the venue and got two ticket. For £37 you get a three course dinner and the comedy, which leaves your sides aching with laughter. Basically, you dine with snobbish, manic Basil; his domineering wife, Sybil; and hopelessly confused waiter, Manuel. It last two hours and is very worth while. My only comment is the food was a bit ropey. You get tomato soup to start with, followed by either Chicken *** and...(read more)

The Edinburgh Festival: Fringe - Alba Flamenca

Paul Flaherty — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 12:20:31 GMT

So while at the Pleasance Courtyard we booked some tickets for Alba Flamenca at the Lot in Grassmarket. Now a few years ago we ate in the restaurant below the Lot and it was not a pleasant experience and we walked out after our starter. BUT the Lot is what looks like a small church hall about the restaurant and offers a very intimate venue So Alba Flamenca ... Earthy and stripped of artifice, Alba Flamenca delivers pure passion. The stunning, mainly improvised performance gets right to the passionate...(read more)

The Edinburgh Festival: Fringe - Fringe Sunday

Paul Flaherty — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 12:14:10 GMT

So Sunday afternoon we headed out to the Meadows and Fringe Sunday . The buzz in Edinburgh this time of year is just awesome. The sheer amount of extra people is just amazing. So the Meadows attracted and extra 100,000 people to see the free events. The Meadows is a large park next to what used to be the Edinburgh Infirmary. Fringe Sunday on the Meadows offers you the opportunity to see the best of the Fringe for free. Showcasing hundreds of Fringe music, theatre, comedy and dance...(read more)

The Edinburgh Festival: Fringe

Paul Flaherty — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 12:01:55 GMT

I know I am a bit late, but on Saturday we took the 0830 train from Kings Cross up to Edinburgh to spend a few days at the festival. The journey didn't start too well. It usually take about 4 and half hours to get up to Edinburgh, but this time it took an exta hour and a half! Why, well some enterprising soles stole cabling from the East Coast Mainline at Claypole, near Grantham, which meant that were forced to manually change signals between Grantham and Newark. Nice .. well this year we are...(read more)

Exchange 2007 and Public Folders

Paul Flaherty — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 16:05:00 GMT

So every day is a school day and today I learnt two thing, which means that is enough for one week ;-) So first off is BES. If you use Exchange 2007, you MUST have public folders for BES to work?! Yeah! BlackBerry Enterprise Server obtains free/busy data from the Schedule+Free/Busy Public Folder on the Microsoft Exchange Server. When Microsoft® Outlook® 2007 and Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 are running in native mode, they use the Availability Service (via Auto Discover) to determine free/busy...(read more)

Get-AllQueuesGUI.ps1 v1.4

Paul Flaherty — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:14:00 GMT

Update to this script too, basically a change from using Get-ExchangeServer in places to Get-TransportServer. Also add a size column to the message tab. It will also log data to c:\ps\logs\<datefolder> Let me know what you think ;-)...(read more)

Get-AllQueues.ps1

Paul Flaherty — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:12:00 GMT

So another script .. This is actually a one liner but this is an easy wrapper. The one liner is: Get-TransportServer | Get-Queue...(read more)

Dump-Help.ps1 v1.0

Paul Flaherty — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 14:15:00 GMT

Recreation of an old script. Basically this will run get-help for all commands and output it to c:\ps\help .. I like it ;-) ######################################################################################### $AppName = "Dump-Help.ps1" $AppVer = "v1.0 [7 August 2008]" #v1.0 6 August 2008 : A script is Born # #This script Checks dumps the build help information for all commands it can find # that have a related PSSnapIn # The output is from get-help <command> -full # The output is put in...(read more)

Microsoft Exchange Online Beta Performs Well

Paul Flaherty — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 11:35:08 GMT

The Future of Exchange? Well this is an interesting article check it out! http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Messaging-and-Collaboration/Microsoft-Exchange-Online-Beta-Performs-Well/?kc=rss Microsoft's hosted Exchange offering is easy to configure, maintain and use, but it's tied too tightly into Windows. In one of the most substantial incarnations of its software-plus-services model to date, Microsoft is preparing to throw its hat into an already-crowded ring of hosted Exchange providers. In fact, Microsoft's...(read more)

Introducing the Microsoft Certified Master Credential

Paul Flaherty — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 08:26:37 GMT

So just got this in an email and wanted to share with you: Thank you for registering for and/or attending our Microsoft Certified Master Live Meeting on July 30, 2008. You'll find a link to the session recording and a few other resources below. To those of you who had trouble logging in to the morning meeting due to the incorrect link we sent you; I apologize. If you weren't able to attend the meeting and you have a specific question, please feel free to contact me and I'll help you find an answer....(read more)

A Month in Exchange: August 2008

Paul Flaherty — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 15:43:10 GMT

Damm is that a month already :-| It's all downhill now .. only 146 days until Christmas! #*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#* New Downloads available in July 2008 Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 Help [July2008] The Exchange Server 2007 SP1 Help can help you in the day-to-day administration of Exchange. Use this information to guide you through Exchange Server 2007 SP1 features, tasks, and administration...(read more)

Exchange 2007 .. When is Memory a Bottleneck?

Paul Flaherty — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:33:09 GMT

I Dunno if you remember this and my little picture: BUT, you have spec'ed ur server, you have enough disk, proc and memory. Any idea on how you know when ur are running out of memory?...(read more)

Exchange 2007 Messages Queued for Submission counter

Paul Flaherty — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:29:21 GMT

Sean pointed this one out to me, and I can't see I had noticed this before. Check out in perfmon, on an Exchange 2007 Mailbox Role server: MSExchangeIS Mailbox\Messages Queued for Submission and then select _Total or a mailbox database. perfmon says "Messages Queued For Submission is the current number of submitted messages which are not yet processed by transport." It would seem that this counter starts to climb, and never goes down :-| anyone else noticed this? ... and there is...(read more)

Get-ExchangeServerPLUS.ps1 v1.14

Paul Flaherty — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 16:11:00 GMT

Damm, has this script grown up recently. In a nut shell, this is the daddy of all scripts and gathers chunks of information from the Exchange Organisation and each Exchange Server by using a mixture of WMI, .Net and Exchange 2007 Powershell commands. The script can be run for just one server, by appending an server name to the command or with no parameter, in which case it will enumerate all Exchange Servers from the Active Directory using the Exchange Powershell command Get-ExchangeServer Typical...(read more)

Performance counters and thresholds for Exchange 2007

Paul Flaherty — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 11:01:56 GMT

So I just stumbled upon this blog ... very interesting and one for adding to your favourites for when you need it....(read more)

Free Exchange Server eBook

Paul Flaherty — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 08:26:00 GMT

Just discovered this blog and found a freebie ... Can't be bad. All you need to do is provide an email address you can download the 379 pdf doc that is made up from thses books: Mastering Exchange Server 2007 Chapter 2: Exchange Server Architecture Chapter 6: Scaling Upward and Outward Exchange Server 2007 Infrastructure Design: A Service-Oriented Approach Chapter 4: Applying Planning Principles to Exchange Sever 2007 Exchange Server 2007 Implementation & Administration Chapter 2: Exchange Server...(read more)