December 2006

Windows Vista RoI: BitLocker drive encryption enough to justify upgrades?

According to analyst Jon Oltsik of Enterprise Strategy Group, Windows Vista’s BitLocker drive encryption system provides enough RoI to justify the upgrade for enterprise customers. PC encryption tools have now become a “must-have” and most enterprises are considering deploying such tools. Standalone drive encryption utilities cost $100-$200 per system in acquisition cost alone. Add to […]

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Exchange Server 2007: How are RBLs performing?

Exchange Server 2007 includes a script that reports on how Realtime Block Lists (RBLs) perform – it provides the number of messages blocked. The script – Get-AntispamTopRBLProviders.ps1 can be found in the \Exchange Server\Scripts folder. To run it, fire up Exchange Shell: .\get-antispamtoprblproviders.ps1 Name Value—- —–Spamhaus SBL-XBL 6626SORBS 33NJABL 2 The script can be constrained […]

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IMF: How to customize NDR message

Do you have IMF setup to reject messages at the gateway? If yes, you can customize the NDR message senders get. Exchange MVP and author of Exchange Server 2003 24Seven (renamed in its second edition to Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Advanced Administration) Jim McBee shows you how in his post titled “Exchange 2003 SP2 IMF […]

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MS06-076: Cumulative Security Update for Outlook Express

As part of its monthly security patch releases, Microsoft has published a security bulletin (MS06-076) – a cumulative update for Outlook Express. Even if you use Microsoft Outlook for email and do not use Outlook Express at all, do remember this is installed by default on all Windows computers and as such it makes sense […]

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WordPress, PHP, and MySQL: Yes, it’s free if…

I’ve been toying with the idea of moving this blog to a better publishing platform – I like what I’ve read about WordPress, I like blogs created/hosted using WordPress. Certainly seems like a better alternative to Blogger. After playing with WordPress (or rather, trying to install WordPress) for a while, I am wondering if it’s […]

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Windows Vista and Outlook Web Access

If you’re using a version of Windows Vista since Beta 2 (including RTM), the version of IE7 included with Vista does not have or support the DHTML Editing (ActiveX) control that allows you to compose or reply to messages in Outlook Web Access. As a result, when you try to compose or reply to messages […]

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It’s Official – Exchange Server 2007 RTMs

It’s official now – Exchange Server 2007 has been released to manufacturing, according to (Exchange GM) Terry Myerson’s post on the Exchange team blog [read his short post on the team blog titled “Signed off!“]. Congratulations to the Exchange team for pulling off this remarkable release, and releasing the product in 2006! This release is […]

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Update: Zinio Support gets back, fixes broken PC Mag subscription

An update to my previous post about Zinio and the broken PC Mag subscription [Zinio Blues, and a broken PC Mag subscription]. It seems my post got the attention of folks higher up at Zinio. Their support dept. got back to me over the last few days and worked with me to resolve the issue. […]

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Should MX record point to CNAME records (aliases)?

Though the practice of pointing MX records to CNAME (alias) records is not that uncommon, it certainly isn’t in keeping with internet standards. When you point a MX record to a CNAME, you’re in fact inviting double the DNS traffic to your DNS servers. Try this by performing a name resolution query using nslookup: >nslookup […]

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Changes to hotfix/patching model for Exchange Server 2007

Microsoft has decided to change the hotfix/patching model for Exchange Server 2007. In the past, if you had a particular issue or came across an error, you looked up the relevant KnowledgeBase article(s) and called PSS for the relevant hotfixes (most hotfixes for Exchange Server 2003/2000 fix a particular issue – Microsoft does not recommend […]

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