Between OCS 2007 R2 release candidate and RTM, the custom presence rules changed. You can no longer use the file:// method to specify the XML file to use for setting your custom presence. A long time ago, I
posted about custom presence in OCS 2007 R1.
If you're wondering what custom presence is, instead of simply setting your status to
Available or
Busy, you can give a more granular status, such as
Working from home or
At the airport. I like to use these more than setting 'notes' because it is visible at a glance and you can still color the little jellybean the proper color (green/red/etc).
Now, how do you go about securing a website with a publicly signed SSL certificate so you can post your XML file without spending any money on a certificate or paying for hosting? Simple -
SkyDrive.
Once you post your XML file to
SkyDrive, make sure to use the URL that goes directly to the XML file and not the
SkyDrive web interface, or else it will not work properly.
The process is documented better at this blog post
here, which tipped me off to using
SkyDrive. Previously, I had been using a self-signed certificate from a local CA published to a self-hosted (per machine) IIS localhost site. I get creative when need be, and the
SkyDrive method, which I didn't realize was possible, is much less resource intensive.
Although, I think it is debatable whether or not a HTTPS website is more or less secure than a local file on the hard drive. I miss the file:// method, but the HTTPS method makes it universal for any machine I use Office Communicator. If I'm using Office Communicator, I have to have internet connectivity, so it makes it a universal solution overall. I won't have different custom states across many computers anymore.