I had an interesting conversation with a fellow commuter yesterday. They were discussing how to integrate applications with Active Directory and how “hard” it was finding null values. I thought that was interesting so I piped in that the value isn’t really null, the attribute just doesn’t exist. The looks I got back told me volumes about what these guys didn’t know, and how they felt about what I thought I knew.

After the end of the ride, I still hadn’t convinced them that I was right. That Active Directory isn’t like a database where both the rows and columns have data or they don’t. If an object doesn’t have a value for the attribute, it just doesn’t exist. The number of times I’ve had this discussion over the years has decreased, but still some folks working with AD are unaware of it. Read the complete article »

I’ve resisted the plunge to Office 2007 for months now. I couldn’t see the need of the thing when Office 2003 was still kicking butt for me. I use Project, Outlook, Visio, and Excel daily and Word at least half the week. I also am a fan of open source. Therefore, I’ve been using OpenOffice more and more. I like it and it’s getting better all the time. Plus, it runs on Linux, which I use about half the time whereas Office is stuck on Windows and Macs.

So, you can see that resistant is perhaps too light a word for my case. As I was flipping through the TechNet disk library, it hit me that I need to at least test drive the thing. This gave me the opportunity to do a dual test drive, Office 2007 running on XP running on Virtual PC 2007 (VPC). Read the complete article »

I’ve commented in the past about my suspicions about eBay buying up payment operator PayPal. I was wary about PayPal in the past but now using them to buy at eBay seemed like it would be a monumental bad move. My suspicions have been proved correct.

Where once you felt protected by the double edged sword, that thing has been dulled into a single edge one, and coverage is spotty at best. At worst, you are left to swing your own sword through the mists of the Internet to get at the scum that is trying to swindle you.

Here is a case to prove the point. I was out researching and came across an article here. Travis is really peeved at PayPal when he should be peeved at eBay as well. As eBay is the parent and the auction was ran on their site, I believe that they owe Travis a full refund if he has proof of all the mess.

Read the complete article »

I’ve been AFK (away from keyboard) from the blog for a few months now. I’ve been the senior Exchange engineer on a massive migration project and it is in the clean up phase. I love the work, but I’m ready to spend more time with the family, more time at the lake, and more time enjoying nature! I also will have more time to blog about the things in IT and the world that I like to keep track of!

A caught a colleague doing the unthinkable the other day, moving mailboxes by searching for them with DSA (better known as Active Directory Users and Computers.) I was flabbergasted. Hundreds of boxes needed moving and this is not the way to do it. As I introduced them to some of the finer points of ESM (Exchange System Manager) and its ability to move tons of boxes very rapidly, their eyes widen with glee. On the trek home, I wondered how many other Exchange administrators are completely unaware of this feature. Its also available with DSA, you just have to selected multiple accounts there too.

One of the greatest features is the scheduler. This feature allows you to schedule the movement task anytime. I prefer at night after replication and backups have finished. You can make as many schedules as you like. The only caveat is that the move wizard dialog box must stay open or the task will not complete.

My preference to move all the mailboxes off a server is to have one task per mailstore. Each task is multi-threaded and processes 4 boxes at a time. With reasonable size mailboxes, it can be finished quite rapidly.

My only grip with the mailbox move process in general is that although it may report a move is complete for a particular box, sometimes it really isn’t. This MAPI move process is supposed to be complete when the move is and the flags removed (to prevent new mail, and users doing anything) so that it can be accessed. In reality, I’ve seen it take as long 6 hours after the completion dialog before it really is. It still beats anything that you can do manually hands down!

For more information on the move process, check out this entry at the Exchange team blog on the very subject.

This post arose out of a situation where I had given some bad poop (Army term for information) about how to control mailbox sizes by OU at Experts Exchange. I was mistakenly thinking of something smelling a lot better!

Any hoots, since I delayed the answer, I wrote this script to accomplish what the guy (I think) needed and without further delay, here it is. Read the complete article »

Our thoughts go out to the families and fellow students of those who were viciously murdered today at VT. I can’t imagine the sadness and shock the families are going through. To those who are already talking about the nonsense of gun control would have prevented this tragedy. Just remember, these students were shoot in a gun free zone in a place where guns are outlawed. Criminals will always get their guns, I just wish that another student had a gun in order to end this tragedy before it claimed a great many of that next generation who will lead our country.

All the pet food recall nastiness got me to thinking about somethings lately. I know, difficult for me right! Anyway, here’s a link so I don’t have to copy it here.

Recently I ran across an issue that it seems lots of folks have, hidden user mailboxes on Microsoft Exchange. Imagine my surprise when I got that call, “We have hidden users on a server! We must be relaying Spam or something!!” Not knowing more at that moment, I got a little nervous, as I was the idiot who installed the server. Can you see me with an idiot hat on? Read the complete article »

Moving can be so fun! Thats a load of crap!

Moving is exciting, stressful, tiring, and cleansing. ‘Exciting because a new beginning is about to start. A new beginning because you are about to embark upon an exciting new adventure. An adventure that will be unlike any other. What Star Trek calls the “Final Frontier!” Read the complete article »

You run into laziness all over the place. Especially amongst IT folks and gas station attendants. Lynn Marie Sager wrote in A River Worth Riding that:

A River Worth Riding: Fourteen Rules for Navigating Life, author Lynn Marie Sager, publisher Aventine Press, Copyright 2005, www.navigatinglife.org

#1: We become lazy when we have low self-esteem. We become lazy when we can’t see ourselves as capable of success. After all, why should we want to take action if we believe that our actions are a waste of effort?

#2: And, strangely enough, we even become lazy when we are satisfied with our lives and want everything to remain exactly the same. After all, when we are happy with things as they are, we are not motivated to change them.

A River Worth Riding: Fourteen Rules for Navigating Life, author Lynn Marie Sager, publisher Aventine Press, Copyright 2005, www.navigatinglife.org

I suspect that the attendant that I ran into today was fully into #1. The IT guys are definitely #2. The problem is that these folks don’t want to do anything to rock the boat. It comes off as if they are lazy. The thing that causes all this is fear. Fear of change. Fear of rejection. Fear of be made fun off, and more.

Go read the book. Its enjoyable and worth the time to read it.