Most recent blog entries

Incredible crashing Exchange

Forums@MTekk.COM.AU — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 13:00:00 GMT

Well, I've been having fun (not!) wih an incredible crashing Exchange 2003 server. It's cost me a fair bit of sleep through its insistence on shutting down the mailbox stores - and on one occasion leaving them in a Dirty Shutdown state where Recover didn't work - so it was time to Repair, which needless to say takes some time and doesn't necessarily give any guarantee of success. Luckily it worked.

The error messages are annoyingly unhelpful, and it doesn't appear that there's much help out there. I've been ruling out possible culprits - such as backup and antivirus- and hopefully will be on top of it soon. It would be nice to be more certain though.

Thus endeth the complaining !

Site Updates

Forums@MTekk.COM.AU — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 13:00:00 GMT

We've performed one major and one minor site update during the last month - the major one was to bring the site software up to date and fix a number of bugs, and the minor one was to improve performance.

The major update was pretty traumatic, since it involved resolving a number of issues that had arisen from the move of databases and the original migration from the old site software. We had to rollback from the first attempt, in spite of development of a comprehensive update procedure, and extensive testing. It was easy enough to identify the cause, and modify the procedure accordingly - but it just goes to show that even the most careful testing can be brought undone by missing the most minor of details.

The minor one, by contrast, was a breeze. Testing was performed, and a few bugs identified (and reported) - but there was nothing we couldn't easily get around, and as a result the site went live with a new version within 2 days of its release... with only around 15 minutes downtime.

I'm pretty happy with the end result, which is a more stable site that feels quite a bit faster overall. The forum editor supports IE7 now - unfortunately still no Opera for Mike, but the browser only recently added support for the rich-text editor style of input; expecting that to happen soon with any luck. There's quite a lot of other updates and fixes which have settled many things we'd previously had to bear or work around.

There's a lot more which we could hope for, but we have to take these things a little at a time. A skin change and major update in a month is pretty huge, and it can take time to see the impact and note/fix any issues that arise.

In the meantime, I hope you notice the difference and enjoy it!

Happy New Year!

Forums@MTekk.COM.AU — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 13:00:00 GMT

Happy New Year everyone! I hope 2007 will be a better year than 2006 was for me - but I hope it will be a great year for all of you!

So, did you all get the Christmas presents you wanted? A new JASJAM perhaps? Or one of those GPS units Fred is always talking about? Or perhaps just a few minutes peace and quiet from the kids!

How about New Year's resolutions? I don't really subscribe to them myself, but perhaps you have some you'd like to share?

Regardless, warmest wishes for the New Year, and may you and your family have a blast!

Good as a holiday?

Forums@MTekk.COM.AU — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 00:05:00 GMT

You might have noticed a bit of a change to the look of the site. Hopefully it's a change for the better. There's more to come, but we figured that we might as well make a start.

It's made for a bit of reshuffling in how pages are organised, but overall there's very little change to functionality - more than anything this change has to do with looks. Improvements to functionality will come too, but all good things take time.

So what do you think? Do you like the changes? I'd be interested to hear from you!

Exchange 2007 Beta 2

Forums@MTekk.COM.AU — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 15:34:00 GMT

I took a moment to play with Beta 2 of Exchange Server 2007 recently; it's been out a while, but there's been so much going on that I haven't had a chance. In a word - awesome! I'm really enthusiastic about the improvements and new features - Unified Messaging should make a huge impact on many organisations ... voice access to mailboxes, and especially the voice recognition, is really a great inclusion. Voicemail and fax integration are also great and could really change organisations in a way that I think Live Communications Server also has potential to achieve.

There's a lot of good to be said about it, and I couldn't pretend to have familiarised myself with everything - I haven't even reached the stage of building an XP or Vista VM with Office 2007 to look at the client end. But there are a couple of concerns for me.

The first is that they have dropped support for the Active Directory Users & Computers add-in. There are stated reasons for this, which I'm sure are valid, but I do wonder about whether the Exchange team is considering their client base adequately. I've encountered plenty of organisations that live inside AD Users & Computers; in fact, many are lucky enough to only need that one tool for creation and management of users.

In this case, the change to managing mailboxes within the Exchange Management Console is a frustrating and bewildering one. This adds an additional layer of complexity that's frankly unnecessary. You could certainly create a user from within the console - but you get no control over the OU in which a user is placed, nor the ability to set their groups or other attributes. So then you'll use AD Users & Computers anyway.

I'm definitely in favour of a choice being available - let those for whom the Exchange Management Console suits use it that way. But anyone who has worked in or managed a helpdesk - or any team that's responsible for provisioning users - would surely know what I mean. One more console means more overhead and more complexity. I could be wrong, but I can't help thinking this won't be a popular design choice for many smaller organisations.

The other problem I have is inconsistency in policies. Managed Folder Mailbox policies (effectively a replacement for Mailbox Manager) and ActiveSync policies are set on a per-user basis. I can see definite advantages in this approach over Exchange 2003 - for example, the ability to differentiate ActiveSync policy on a per user basis. However it seems that if they are not manually set at the time of user creation, they do not get applied.

Contrast this with email address policies, which are set appropriately by default for new users, and which can automatically update all users on change.

The most likely result of this is extra overhead for administrators. The last thing an administrator needs is something that was previously automatic becoming a manual process! Why not include the ability to assign policies to groups, to set defaults for new users, and to re-apply policy on change?

There's certainly room for argument that the new and powerful scripting abilities incorporated into Exchange 2007 could achieve the necessary tasks for both of my concerns. But it's command-line scripting, and even if you schedule it or automate it some other way, I still don't think it likely to be desirable for a reasonable percentage of customers. I'd certainly prefer these to be addressed in the GUI from the outset.

Realistically - it's a beta product for now. Feature lists have a habit of changing before release. That tends to be based on feedback, so if enough people don't like a feature, or lack thereof, there's every chance it will make it in. I have every hope that these problems will be addressed - but if not, well, it's looking like a great product anyway, and hopefully it won't be too hard to work around them!

Reason to be cheerful #1

Forums@MTekk.COM.AU — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 16:18:00 GMT

I just found out yesterday that the Sci-Fi Channel is coming to Australia. It's possibly the only thing which can push me over the line to getting Pay-TV. That and the fact that free-to-air is getting so bad.

So can anyone guess what I'm looking forward to?

That's right, the possibility that new Battlestar Galactica episodes might air a lot quicker here than they have to date, and that the show won't get mucked around in the way that Channel 10 has done - especially Ten's latest trick of dumping BSG Season 2 to a very late night time slot with little to no fanfare (thank goodness the Season 2 DVD's were out relatively soon afterwards).

Anyway - I'm happy about the news, and it's quite likely I'll take the lowest package available on Foxtel or Austar, and then add whatever package is necessary to get Sci-Fi. There are other channels that come in the minimum package that I'd be happy to have too, but none of them had me suitably convinced.

Definitely a reason to be cheerful in my opinion!

Ch- Ch- Ch- Ch- Changes

Forums@MTekk.COM.AU — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 06:07:00 GMT

I've changed jobs after about 2 1/2 years. This is a significant shift back toward the old consultancy days, but I bring to it a very different attitude from before ... essentially that I've now seen both sides of the fence and therefore can emphathise more with the customer than previously possible.

It's interesting, and I'm still settling in, but the website might actually get some more time from me now - I've even managed to do some much needed software updates, with more to come.

As always, the mods and admins have been doing an awesome job regardless.

Anyway, apart from that, I'd like to highly recommend the Dell Latitude D420 which is my current notebook. I'm running a Centrino Duo model and it absolutely rocks. Except for the inbuilt Intel 3945ABG 802.11a/b/g card which is complete and utter crap - at least in terms of compatibility for the wireless router I currently use (and I believe some others). Luckily I have my trusty old Netgear WAG511 PCMCIA card.

In terms of the D420 itself, it's awesome. I had a D410 prior to that, which was great but with too small a screen; the D420's wide screen makes it far more usable, and the biometrics are a nice touch if fiddly to get the hang of. The 1.5Gb RAM and an external USB2 portable HDD make for an excellent combination for VMWare Server guests on the go.

Finally, my current device of choice is an i-mate K-JAM. It's a solid PDA and phone, and I successfully rolled it out to a reasonable number of users in my past job. I'm enthusiastic about the followup - the JASJAM, which Dave reviewed - but this one will do me for a while.

Ack! Blag!

Forums@MTekk.COM.AU — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 15:04:00 GMT

Ftang!

Non-abandoned blog!

Forums@MTekk.COM.AU — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 11:20:00 GMT

Yes, I'm still doing the blog! I've been very busy (when aren't I) on a very critical project which has kept me very occupied. I'm also making an effort to spend more time with the wife and kids, but it's primarily work that's kept/keeping me away.

It really doesn't help that FredS gave me his copy of Elder Scrolls 4 : Oblivion for the XBox 360! On top of everything else, I've become addicted to that - admittedly I'm only succeeding in playing one or two hours late at night as a rule, but Fred: not helping mate!!! :-)

The project - well, I can't talk about what it is, but I've been working on the design for 2 years, and it's fairly nerve-wracking to see it all now taking shape (especially with various vendor delays and errors). It's an expensive project by our standards but will really benefit my work place in future.

Other things ... well, the site seems to be settling down with the new software. There are bugs, and I'm still trying to iron them out, but since the old site was built over several years, we've come across pretty well. Thanks to everyone for being so patient, supportive, and understanding.

I'll try to update more often ... at least I've managed to get one entry in for April. I did attempt to post a couple earlier this month but had some other problems that stopped it from happening.

So little to do, so much time ... :-D

Phone Diversions

Forums@MTekk.COM.AU — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 01:43:00 GMT

It's nice in theory to divert your desk phone to your mobile, and most of the time it's convenient. However it becomes inconvenient, even troublesome, when you want to screen your calls against some vendor/telemarketer who keeps hassling you; the number doesn't get passed on to your mobile so you can't tell if it's someone you want to talk to or not.

Very annoying. So far the best option I have is to just ignore it and wait to see if they leave a message. Not particularly reliable.

What I need is a big red button to detect nuisance callers and obliterate them. Time for a Google search!

Back to my 360

Forums@MTekk.COM.AU — Thu, 23 Mar 2006 08:31:00 GMT

Well, I did wind up setting up and playing with the XBox 360 last night, since I had a bout of insomnia in the end.

All in all, very happy. Glad I bought the wireless adapter although I may have to look into replacing my beloved Netgear FWAG114 802.11a/b/g router. It's pretty old now - has served its purpose VERY well - and is not fully compatible with XBox Live. Not so worried by this since prices for XBox Live compatibles seem to be reasonably low.

Anyhow, I'm about to head home and try to get some time in with either Project Gotham 3 (fun game) or Perfect Dark Zero. I wanted Dead or Alive 4, but looks like I have to wait for now.

Any other game suggestions out there?

Got the Xbox 360

Forums@MTekk.COM.AU — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 14:33:00 GMT

Well, strolled into The Gamesmen at just before midnight and picked up my XBox 360. Only a few people instore, so it was a nice smooth transaction.

But before I left the city at around 11:00pm, it was absolutely pouring down. So I wonder how the big launch in Pitt St Mall went. Did anyone go? Did anyone get drenched?

Of course, with any luck someone had the foresight to look at the weather and change plans - or already had a plan B. It's embarrassing to watch when that doesn't happen.

Anyway, for those of you who were crazy enough to do the midnight launch wherever you are - enjoy, you'll probably be playing it long before I do. I still have to work today, and I will therefore put off my XBox 360 setup to tonight. At least I found someone to take my old XBox, and they'll probably get it later today :-)

XBox 360 tonight!

Forums@MTekk.COM.AU — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 11:08:00 GMT

Yup - off to Gamesmen in Penrith tonight, just in case no-one else turns up so the guys won't be lonely, and getting my XBox 360.

O'course it's been a long day so I doubt I'll play it until the next day sometime - but I will still be going to work tomorrow (should be quiet if some of those media reports are to be believed?!?!?!)

Some things are just not so obvious

Forums@MTekk.COM.AU — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 12:12:00 GMT

You know, if you're paying for a managed firewall and Internet service with a provider who also provides WAN services to you, and you decide to terminate the WAN services - stop and think when they ring to confirm disconnection of the managed firewall as well. We hadn't requested that to be disconnected, but although the obvious and correct answer is "No, that's not to be disconnected yet", you also need to consider that, for some reason, they will not consider the transport as included in that answer.

Such was the case yesterday, and when today our Internet (not to this site) suddenly disappeared without warning, I began to have some suspicions. Sure enough, although the firewall service had been left intact, the HDSL link had been disconnected. "We didn't realise you meant that too". Funny really, since they're billed together and are seperate from the WAN services.

Anyway, fortunately the disconnection was logical rather than physical, so service was restored in hours rather than the standard provisioning time of one week.

Now, on reflection, and especially given our frequently painful and aggravating dealings with this particular provider along with the time I've been in the IT industry, I should have known better and expected exactly this to happen. I could put up a defence that I am particularly busy right now, but all I can realistically do is try to remember it next time, along with chalking the incident up on the list of reasons why we're moving away from this provider in the first place!

Spoke too soon

Forums@MTekk.COM.AU — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 02:50:00 GMT

Well, it seems the Gamesmen in Penrith will be opening at 12:01am on Thursday after all.

So I guess I'll be going since it'll mean not having to drop in before work ... and of course I want my Xbox 360! :-)