Aaron Tiensivu's Blog

Go to all 4 Exchange 12 Preview TechNet Webcasts, and fill out an evaluation by 3/31/06, and you just might win a subscription.

Register for them here:

03-14-06 - Exchange 12 overview

03-15-06 - Giving the administrator more control

03-16-06 - Client access and web services

03-17-06 - Message security and active protection

I will be there as long as I'm not onsite somewhere for work or buried in phone calls. Of all the betas that I want to be involved in, this is the one. Due to Sharepoint 2001/2003 [WSS] and Exchange 2000/2003, I'm very familiar with the JET database backend and I'm curious to see how it has morphed in this version of Exchange. Besides, Monad is just plain cool for scripting junkies like me.

As time goes on, more and more people have come up to me to say that they were searching on the Internet (is it proper to capitalize Internet?) about a problem they were having and a link from a search engine brought them here. As strange as it sounds, the same thing has happened to me on accident.

I was looking up information on Quickbooks and Terminal Services and this website was one of the first links to show up. I don't know why but I found that to be tremendously cool. My little place on the web is making a difference to people.

It is also helping get my unusual last name out there. My grandfather came over at age 18 from Finland to Michigan. The rest is history. He was a communications marine in World War 2 over in Iwa Jima, among other things. Yeah, that Iwa Jima. I hope he is watching over us from up above and that I am doing our family name proud. I still think about him a lot and the fact that he never got to meet his great grandchildren.

Spotted here:

http://spaces.msn.com/messengersays/Blog/cns!5B410F7FD930829E!8839.entry

If you are still without access to this beta, please drop me a comment. I have over 50 invites left after giving out at least 25+ already.

One interesting thing I've noticed with these newer build is that they seem to be using the DFS-R backend to do the bulk of the 'Shared Folder' functionality. That's pretty cool if you ask me. One potential problem though is that it likes to create USN / Alternative Data Streams on NTFS partitions that show up as 8GB size files, even though they are a fraction of that size overall.

It is good to see product teams sharing code.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chester_Township%2C_Ottawa_County%2C_Michigan

We've made it. We've finally made it.

Yes, it is a small town, with absolutely no broadband. It is the only thing I don't like about the place.
If I won the lottery or could actually get a return on my investment, I'd bring in broadband somehow.

I also added links to Grose Park and Crockery Lake, and created links for them too at Wikipedia.
It is definitely a work in progress but at least it is a start.

There is a hotfix released that will reduce the amount of kernel paged pool RAM used, typically by 1/3rd. I'm guessing they changed the internal structure of the client access tokens so that they only use 2 pages (8k on ia32) instead of 3 pages (12k on ia32).

I could be wrong on that but based on the KB article, it seems to ring true. Please tell me otherwise if I am wrong.

If Exchange 2003 ran native on x64, it would be an even bigger win on memory savings, but given the way kernel memory is layed out in x64, I don't think it would be as big of an issue on that platform. It is just another reason to go 64-bit when Exchange 12 comes out.

More details here:

http://blogs.technet.com/exchange/archive/2006/02/27/420684.aspx

and here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/912376/

Ever since Juliana's crib was recalled, I have been on the look out for good resources on recalls and this one takes the cake, and it has a nice RSS feed about all recalls as they come out.

http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prerel.xml

I have always wondered where the towers were in my neighborhood.
Thankfully I have a Verizon phone and the closest tower to my home is a Verizon tower.

http://www.cellreception.com/towers/index.html

Swiped from Something Awful's Coupon section and too good to pass up:

HS820 $30: http://tinyurl.com/dmmyf
HS815 $30: http://tinyurl.com/7nku5
HS805 $25: http://tinyurl.com/c4p35

Use code RAZRREWARDS for 10% off.
Free Shipping.

As a sidenote, I have the Motorola HS850 and love it to death. I use it with my cellphone and I use it with my laptop to listen to music. You would think only having mono sound would not be very good but I like it because I can be talking on the desk phone at my desk and still listen to music in the other ear.
Plus, I can walk anywhere in the building, except the kitchen, and still have sound. The transmitters on these Compaq nc6000 laptops are pretty powerful.

Wow, what a day. Even though it is just past midnight, the past 12 hours have been pretty intense.
It was a case of 'I've prepared as much as I could, and yet there was a whole lot of unexpected thrown at me today'.

Whether it was missing parts for a server rack, fragile old pre-existing wiring in a building, unexpected emergencies when I'm 2 and 1/2 hour away from the location, or just plain old bad luck, it happened today.

On the upside, at the end of the long day, we had a complete VOIP system rolled out and online at 2 office locations and the old system deactivated. There are minor tweaks/changes that need to be done tomorrow but the bulk of the 'hard stuff' went as well as it could today. If it weren't for my coworker today, I think I'd still be there setting things up. Teamwork goes a long way.

Also on the upside, it looks like I've been nominated for Microsoft MVP again and I'm really excited about it. I hope I 'make the cut' this time around. It was always something I discounted in my mind like 'Yeah, I'll never get something like that, those guys (and gals) are wizards' but it looks like a real possibility! Keep your fingers crossed for me.

One of the best ones out there, because it's written by the people who wrote it:

http://blogs.technet.com/filecab/

This entry about managing staging folders gave me a tidbit of information I didn't know/realize about DFS and how it differs from FRS. DFS (Win2k3 R2+) uses the staging folders for inbound and outbound.

http://blogs.technet.com/filecab/archive/2006/02/21/420008.aspx

As broadband becomes more available, you will see more and more reasons to use DFS for multi-site companies, even the 2 location Mom-and-Pop shops. It was hard to do, decently, with the older architecture but these new features make it easier to achieve. You could almost think of the data going over the wire as "compressed block-level differentials". That is a big win when going over a VPN or a cable modem.

File under: Kinda cool, kinda creepy.

http://www.google.com/searchhistory/?hl=en

It sounds like Public Folder support will be around for quite a while due to how often they are used for versions of Exchange before 12 and especially Outlook clients before Office 2007. You will be able to disable Public Folders in Exchange 12 but you'll lose a lot of features.

I think this is a step in the right direction, honestly. Public Folders have always been a bear to maintain when they get into the multiple gig range. You could think of the backend of Sharepoint 2001 as one big public folder, because, that is essentially what Sharepoint 2001. It was a custom version of Exchange 2000 backend with one information store. I still have nightmares of maintaining a few huge SPS 2001 sites. It loved to eat folders for breakfast and require a good ISINTEG every year or so to clean up the cruft.

WSS v3 will be the platform to build 'new' Public Folders off of, and I think that will be pretty cool.

More info here:

http://blogs.technet.com/exchange/archive/2006/02/20/419994.aspx

http://mobile.newsforge.com/mobility/06/02/09/1727256.shtml?tid=104&tid=132

I seem to live in the last known area to have analog cable with Charter Cable in Michigan. We are surrounded by digital cable, but our Crockery Lake substation has yet to be rebuilt. DSL is not available in the area either, and even if it were, it would be iDSL at best. I'd love to pull in a T1 into my house and setup a little wireless ISP but I know for a fact that the instant I do such a thing, for a big cost outlay, suddenly digital cable will be available out here.

I know for a fact that there is a lot of interest around here for something better than ISDN. Right now when I'm at home, I'm on my cell phone with a data plan. So now it is a race between whether digital cable with cable modems get here first, or EVDO gets rolled out in Grand Rapids. If I pay off enough bills and can get enough people to subscribe to a wireless subscription, I might have to get a T1 in here for any decent speeds.

Anyway, long rant, but I would love to get VOIP on my little WRT54GS but over a cell phone on 1xRTT (144kbit - basically just about IDSL speeds - I sometimes get 16k/sec) , VOIP just isn't viable. Too much latency variance and not enough 'fat pipe'.

Panasonic NB-G100P-S 7.2-Quart Flash Express 1300 Watt Infrared Toaster Oven

The perfect gift for Infra-Red Riding Hood. I would love one of these but unfortunately our current toaster works really well. If it for some reason decides to conk out, I'm definitely looking into this bad boy.

Amazon link:
http://tinyurl.com/qq6rb

Panasonic link:
http://tinyurl.com/5yby9

My wife is working on this project and I hope she wins... as seen here:

http://blogs.msdn.com/mswanson/archive/2006/02/19/535213.aspx

Contest info:
http://www.mix06.com/Contest.aspx