Aaron Tiensivu's Blog

This looks to be a great update and improvement to the iCal update from a few months ago (KB 950219)

Even though there are many changes listed, the ones that caught my eye in particular are:

KB 956531 - Outlook 2007 prompts you repeatedly for a password under certain network conditions

KB 956647 - Outlook 2007 does not honor the folder structure that was created in Internet Explorer 7 for the RSS Feeds folder

KB 956532 - When a user accesses their Free/Busy information, the Outlook Web Access service stops on the computer that is running Exchange 2007

KB 955572 - You cannot cache shared mail folders in Outlook 2007

KB 956528 - You cannot suppress the Autodiscover redirect warning in Outlook 2007

This hotfix fixes the following issues that were not previously documented in a Microsoft Knowledge Base article:

Outlook 2007 on a LAN uses NTLM authentication instead of Kerberos authentication for the Autodiscover service and for the Availability service.

You open Outlook 2007 in Cached Exchange Mode. After the initial synchronization is complete and the status bar displays All folders are up to date, the notification area still displays the synchronizing icon.

When you start Outlook 2007, you may receive the following error message: The data file file_name was not closed properly. The file is being checked for problems. Additionally, when the data consistency check occurs, Outlook 2007 responds slower than you expected.
Note: This hotfix greatly reduces the frequency of the consistency checks and the time that is required to perform the checks. (Yay!)

Read more about the update here and request the binaries here. There are many more issues fixed than what I highlighted here.

This is an unreal site that a friend posted and allows you to zoom in to the day to day stories, all the way back to the 1900s, for the overall time line of events.

What exactly is Web 2.5? I have no idea. I just made it up. I'm still wrapping my head around the difference between Web 1.0 and 2.0, other than 'visitors can provide feedback and content'.

Transcript from the 9/24/2008 Springboard Series Virtual Roundtable, "Under the Hood: Windows Vista Performance...Need Answers?" hosted by Mark Russinovich. From boot times and applets to common "misconfigurations" and how to fix them. Mark and a panel of customer IT pros and subject matter experts discuss how to optimize Windows Vista and what IT pros can do to improve overall system performance.

I helped out on this webcast in Redmond and answered many questions behind the scenes during the actual event. Transcripts are now available for download of the RoundTable.

If you want to see a replay of the video/event, go to this Technet page here, or enter this address into your Windows Media Player or any other player than can handle mms:// links with streaming .WMV content.

If you are following my wife's site at all, you'll notice that she has a "pet project" going on. If all plans go according to plan, we'll soon have a bunch of chickens on our property.

Of course, the first thing I thought of was to come up with a way to get a webcam out there and how to broadcast it to the world. I know I've seen other chicken egg hatching videos/channels on Yahoo Live and other video sites.

We do have all the proper permits, so we're legal.

I don't know if this is considered a 'backdoor' or not, but it has worked with every KB article I have tried it on so far.

Most of the time, if a KB article is available to the public, there will be a "Hotfix Download Available -
View and request hotfix downloads" message on the top of the screen like this:


If you have a particular KB article that you want to download, and the image above seems to be missing, try this link in your web browser:

http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=[KBnumber]&kbln=[KB language]

Replace [KBnumber] with the number of the hotfix you want, and replace [KB language] with your build language.

For instance, requesting KB 940848 for US English, would look like this:

http://support.microsoft.com/hotfix/KBHotfix.aspx?kbnum=940848&kbln=en-us

If someone wanted to, you could create a little Javascript applet to ask for the language and KB article, and auto-generate the above link.

Update: As pointed out in the comments section, someone beat me to writing up a Javascript-esque script for automating the request process. It is called Hotfixr. Much like Flickr. We seem to be losing vowels on the Internet.

Your one stop for MMC 3.0 updates can be found in KB 940848. It is especially important for SCCM deployments because earlier versions had a knack for crashing your console without warning.

It is available for XP, Server 2003 and Vista.

You can download the update here.

This category will contain updates to components offered for various components of Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 and Microsoft Office Communicator.

I'm glad to see this, because official Office Communicator updates have been traditionally a little tricky to track. Currently, I'm recommending Office Communicator v2.0.6362.76 for current and future installs of OCS 2007 R1, which can be found here.

From the WSUS blog:

Office Communications Server 2007 and R2 manages all real-time communications including: instant messaging, VoIP, audio and video conferencing. Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 and R2 also powers presence, a key benefit of Microsoft unified communications that unites the contact and identity information stored in Active Directory with the ways people communicate. Security updates can be released through this category periodically.

Office Communicator is a unified communications client that helps people be more productive by enabling them to communicate easily with others in different locations or time zones using a range of different communication options, including instant messaging (IM), voice, and video. Integration with programs across the 2007 Microsoft Office system — including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Groove, and SharePoint Server — gives information workers many different ways to communicate with each other via a consistent and simple user experience.

There is nothing noteworthy in the KB article just yet, but keep it bookmarked to stay informed on the upcoming releases. Because Server 2008 and Vista SP1 are "built from the same tree" (for the most part), it makes sense that they will have a combined release.

Check out the article here.

Windows Server 2008 File Services

This guide provides the basic building blocks upon which many other infrastructure services are based. Enjoy peace of mind in knowing that all critical phases of the plan are included, allowing you to establish a good foundation for future expansion.

Windows Server 2008 Print Services

The goal of this guide is to enable you to strategically plan your print infrastructure. By analyzing your printing needs, you will be able to design print servers with sufficient memory and spooler capacity. Efficiently designing printer pools can help you avoid problems before they begin, erase performance bottlenecks, and serve your customers more reliably.

Originally spotted on Kevin Remde's excellent blog, here.

Read about the 10+ fixes here.

Download it here.

Unfortunately, I don't see the Exchange 2007 SP1 UM multiple diversion header bug fix (KB 949968 - not online yet) in the list, so the private hotfix from PSS might still be needed for proper interaction with Cisco CUCM.

You might be wondering why a Linux-centric post is doing here, but it could be helpful for others out there trying out Ubuntu 8.10 Beta with systems that have Intel gigabit Ethernet adapters in them.

Only newer Intel chipsets seem to be affected by this bug in the earlier Linux 2.6.27-RC builds, but there is a potential of NVRAM wiping if certain (rare) situations occur. For this reason, by default, Ubuntu 8.10 Beta has the affected PCI IDs blacklisted.

However, if you update your kernel to the latest kernel release for Ubuntu Intrepid, using Update Manager or other methods (apt-get or synaptic). As of today, the package version is 2.6.27-4.6.

If you want to read more about the blacklisting and the bug fix involved, read the article here, and here.

The only other bummer I have run into so far with this new version of Ubuntu is that the newest ATI binary drivers do not support X.org 7.4 (yet) so if you want 3D goodness *right now* you have to downgrade to the old Hardy 7.3 libraries. I don't want to go through that hassle and will just wait for ATI/AMD to play catch up.

Info on ATI getting the binary drivers to work on Ubuntu 8.10 here.

Other than that, everything works out of the box after you un-blacklist the wired interface.

Bluetooth, wireless, everything, fired right up. I can't say that about prior versions of Ubuntu with my Thinkpad T60.

Thankfully wireless was working with WPA2 so that I could get on my home network and upgrade the kernel or else I would have been sneakernetting the upgrade files.

I bumped into this by accident while reading up on the upcoming Paint 3.5 release, which will have .NET 3.5 SP1 support and a bunch of performance optimizations for low end machines.

Unfortunately, my main desktop machine at home, which now performs a dual role as an Active Directory domain controller for the house, is what is now considered low end for newer applications. I plan on fixing that problem later this year or early next year. My single core Prescott P4 has served me well for many years, but I keep holding out for Nehalem, and other bills paid off first. Of course, my heating bills will probably go up in cost, unrelated to oil prices, because the Prescott is notorious for producing more heat than speed.

Back to my original reason for this post though - why on Earth would someone recommend disabling the Windows Installer service as a performance tweak? I could potentially understand if they never plan on installing any additional programs or updates and really need the couple MBs of RAM and context switches from the process for a starved machine, but it just causes more harm than good. It also has caused the Paint.NET developer grief and bug reports due to strange application errors.

The Windows Installer process only runs when it needs to - any other time, it shuts down gracefully.

Unrelated tangent about my Prescott P4: I have an oddball Prescott - a 3.2Ghz that can be switched in the ASUS P4C800-E BIOS between a 14X and 16X multiplier due to a "bug" in the core - Stepping 3, Revision C0. This means you can crank the CPU up to 3.6Ghz without much trouble, but 99.9% of the time, I run the system at stock speed. At 14X, it will boot up at 2.8Ghz, but you can then send the front side bus sky high, assuming your RAM and Northbridge can keep up. I used to slap together a lot of systems in the past and old habits die hard it seems.

A lot of people are giving up on Michigan, even McCain. I try to avoid politics, and as strange as it sounds, I'm happy I will be seeing less political ads. I'm just burnt out on the process already, and it is only the beginning of October.

West Michigan, little by little, is becoming a little mecca for healthcare, IT, and the movie industry. Are there dark days ahead? I'm not sure, but to a certain extent, I already believe Michigan has seen the worst of this before the rest of the USA, due to our manufacturing industries drying up and closing down since the late 90s.

Disclaimer: Despite what Google AdSense might think (I've seen McCain ads show up), if political parties were a musical genre, I'd be classified as "Indie". Traditionally I vote for 'who will harm me the least'. Read into that however you want. If political parties were a religion, I'd be agnostic.

Although this came out late last year, I just bumped into it recently, and it provides a neat way to manage contact lists for OCS 2007.

Description of the free tool from their website, slightly updated for grammar:

OCSCM Beta enables the IT administrator to manage operations related to OCS users:

1. Ability to create OCS users (Active Directory user with live communication server option Enable).
2. Assign & re-assign contacts list for an OCS user.
3. Delete any contact from all OCS users' contact list.
4. Send notification mail to all contacts about a new OCS user.

You can download it from here.

We've gone from flash mobs to Facebook pillowfights in Grand Rapids, Michigan and I have to say I think it is pretty neat. I wish I would have known about it and I might have dared to bring my kids with me. With all the worry over the economy and everything else, it is good to see a *positive* news story about something local.

You can read more about it here.

Update: There is now a video of the pillow fight on YouTube - also, very Web 2.0-y. Looks like a lot of fun!

A small snippet in case the article goes offline:

Grand Rapids, MI (WZZM)-- More than a thousand pillow toting Facebook enthusiasts descended on Rosa Parks Circle in downtown Grand Rapids Sunday for what may be one of the largest pillow fights ever.

"It just started with me inviting about 100 people to the event on Facebook. It was originally just for a few friends and then it just exploded," said Rob Bliss who organized the event.

Participants squared off in teams based on the color of their shirts. And then the drama started to build.

The clocked ticked down as the theme song from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly western blared from speakers.

If nothing else this pillow fight battle proved how powerful Facebook and other social websites can be at unifying people under a coming cause.