Wednesday, May 30, 2007

PowerPoint Presentation Humor

PowerPoint Presentation Humor, just something a little different, but funny if you have ever worked with PowerPoint or been to a meeting.

Thursday, May 24, 2007

How to Use Nslookup to Verify MX record configuration

As I have been installing, configuring, and testing our Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 I have had to test the DNS system to ensure our domain is registared and working properly. This is something that all system administrators should know how to do, but the exact syntax is often forgotten.

  1. Open a Command Prompt (Start, Run, cmd, [Enter])
  2. Type nslookup.
  3. Server (The DNS server that you want to use. This is optional.)
  4. Set q=mx (This sets the query type to "MX" {Mail Exchanger}.)
  5. (The domain name you want to lookup the mail exchanger to.)

This operation can be done on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Vista. There are similar options if you are doing this from Linux.

  1. Open up a terminal (Differs by distribution)
  2. Type nslookup.
  3. Set type=mx (This sets the query type to "MX" {Mail Exchanger}.)
  4. (The domain name you want to lookup the mail exchanger to.)

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Microsoft Exchange 2003 Send as vs. Send on behalf of

Neil Hobson over at MSExchange.org has a very good article about the differences of "Send as" vs. "Send on behalf of".

The key difference is how the reciever sees the message come in. When using "Send as" the reciever thinks it really came from the sender, but when using "Send on Behalf of" it comes across as "Steve Lippert sent on behalf of Steve's Manager".

Monday, May 14, 2007

Microsoft WSUS 3.0 is finally released!

This is just a quick link to Petri IT Knowledgebase with a nice article on WSUS 3.0 and whats new.

Thats all!

Microsoft Visual Studio Express Editions Codename: "Orcas"

Microsoft recently release a Community Technical Preview (CTP) of it's next Visual Basic Express Edition (also C#, C++, and Web Developer). You can go to the Visual Studio Express Editions Codename: "Orcas" to see what they have changed in the new version(s).

I am currently downloading just the installs and not the MSDN Library, SQL Compact, or SQL Express Editions and it's over 870MB. I *MIGHT* update you when I have everything installed and working to see how my programs moved over and such.

**Please note there is also a patch to download if you are unfortunate and are running Windows Vista**

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Recovering a failed Exchange 2007 server!

Monday morning I came into work to find that I could not get Microsoft Outlook to play with our Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 as it had on Friday afternoon when I left for the week. As it turns out the RAID controller decieded it didn't want to see two of the hard disks. Result: Rebuild RAID array, format and reinstall Windows.

After I got Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 reinstalled and fully updated I had to reinstall Exchange. This being my first time recovering a failed server I was a bit nervious to say the least. I tried to just run Setup.exe but it said "Exchange is in an inconsistent state" or something very similar. So I opened up a command prompt and ran "setup /?". After reading through the help file I saw the holy grail of commands. "Setup /mode:RecoverServer" will do just that. Recover your server (Installed and configured as it had been.) Too bad our backups of the mail stores where bad otherwise I could have had everything back up and running within a matter of hours.

Trojan Virus Spoofs Windows Activation

This is more of a heads up than anything, aparently there is a new virus / trojan out this spoofs the Windows Activation Screen. They did a pretty good job except for the misspelling of "you" instead of "your". I fear many people new to the online world will actually give this information away in part because apparently you cannot close the window without filling in the information.
Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket

Microsoft Silverlight Developer Reference

Quoted from www.silverlight.net
"Microsoft® Silverlight™ is a cross-browser, cross-platform plug-in for delivering the next generation of .NET based media experiences and rich interactive applications for the Web. Silverlight offers a flexible programming model that supports AJAX, VB, C#, Python, and Ruby, and integrates with existing Web applications. Silverlight supports fast, cost-effective delivery of high-quality video to all major browsers running on the Mac OS or Windows."

And here is a Developer Reference that you can print out to use while programming in this new framework.

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

MC MCSE: A resource for aspiring MCSEs

I just found MC MCSE yesterday while looking for tips to pass my up and coming 70-284 exam. They offer:
Free Practice Exams - 44 free practice tests with over 4,300 total questions.
Free Study Guides - 110 study guides and tutorials to help you pass your exams.
Find Training Materials - Find the best books and training products for your studies.
Free Tech Magazines - Free subscriptions to ComputerWorld, eWeek and many more.
I took my first free test yesterday and got a 76% on it, passing, but not excellent. I find that most of the questions are well written but there where a few that needed some work. (Much like this blog I know!)

Dell to offer Ubuntu Linux Pre-installed

Well it looks like Dell finally caved and will be offering PCs and Laptops with Ubuntu Linux pre-installed. Lets just hope that the option to get Ubuntu Linux is not burried as it has been in the past to get a PC with out Windows on it.

Tuesday, May 01, 2007

70-284 Exam Prep Problem Question Number 1

This is a question I keep getting wrong while studying for my 70-284 Microsoft Exchange 2003 Certification Exam.
Basically you need to migrate from Lotus cc: Mail to Microsoft Exchange 2003, but the catch is that your Microsoft Exchange Server is not available yet. To complete this question you must correctly add in the necessary steps and what order they go in.
Step one is a simple, you must choose to do a Two-Step migration because your Microsoft Exchange Server is not available. Step two: you must specify a path to the migration files so that you can use them when your new Microsoft Exchange Server is ready. Step three: you must specify the Lotus cc: Mail Post Office and password to export the mailboxes with. Step four: here you select the information to migrate over to Microsoft Exchange. Step five: The final step in all of this is to select the users to export.
Hopefully now that I have written this out I can remember it at least long enough to get a question like this right on my Exam!