Outlook gets confused

Still not sure what happened to my system this morning but when I sat down at my computer I noticed that Outlook has last updated around 1am with the Exchange server. Ok, this is nothing new, it happens now and then and simply restarting Outlook fixes the issue quickly enough, but not this time. I kept getting prompted for my Exchange login and it would pop back up instantly which pretty much said it’s not really talking to the server…so I restarted the whole computer.

This didn’t even fix the issue which was really annoying! I checked to make sure the SSL certificate was still there (using Outlook 2007 RPC/HTTPS for connection) and everything was fine….I was able to login to OWA without problems so I know my username & password are working. Ok, time for the next step, I created a new Outlook profile and setup all my info…same problem. WFT!!

A couple other quirks I noticed while trying to look for problems, Messenger would not sign on saying the service wasn’t available and Mesh was not able to login either. Internet was working as I was able to browse and login to the server to check for errors.

So I check on another computer connected on the same LAN and same versions…everything’s working fine there. Ok…on to the next step…instead of restarting I completely shut down the computer. When I restarted everything was back to normal and working as it should. I still have no idea what caused the computer to loose it’s brains for a while and why rebooting didn’t clear up the issue but a complete power down did. If anyone has run into this before please let me know. I’m currently letting the AV run through a complete check just to be safe.

New Microsoft Ad – #2

The 2nd new Microsoft ad featuring Bill Gates & Jerry Seinfeld is out now. I have to say the first one made me laugh a little even though it was bit odd….this one on the other hand was just plain weird.

If you haven’t seen it, you can watch the ad series at the Windows site: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/

Oh well, guess it shows there’s very short supply of marketing people that are good!

SBS 2008 Partner Tour

So tonight we had the Microsoft Small Business Server 2008 Partner Tour. I’m still not sure why I’m still awake after going through about 6 hours of Power Point slides!

The start of the show, the vendor portion, was kinda slow as the vendors who were here really didn’t fit the crowd and it was obvious. I think I actually heard crickets when one was talking. I don’t want to mention them because they were all nice people but were just talking to the wrong crowd.

The actual Microsoft portion on SBS 2008 was really good. I will say that Kevin was one of the best people from the marketing side to present from Microsoft because he didn’t try to offer the Microsoft is perfect pitch but did admit to short comings in the products. I do wish the marketing/licensing part would have been shorter as there wasn’t really any new info but we spent a lot of time on it…a good portion was due to so called IT Pro’s who kept asking stupid questions that really made me wonder if they had ever looked at let alone used SBS before.

During the tech side we did get to hear about some neat little tricks and features that I hadn’t seen before. Just wish people didn’t keep asking the same questions over and over so we could have gotten through a lot more.

PBIT and SFLTech.NET Meetings

This weeks IT meetings consist of the Palm Beach IT Association on Tuesday featuring Alex Raskin of ADTRAN who will be talking with us about the routers, switches, WAPS, and IP-PBX systems that ADTRAN makes. Alex was actually the first presenter for the SFLTech group when it started several years back.

And speaking of SFLTech, this week there are actually two meetings, first is a small vendor meeting for all SFLTech members which will be immediately followed by the Microsoft SBS 2008 Partner Group Tour. Both are being help at the Microsoft office.

For details or directions and to register for any or all three of the meetings, please see the respective group sites.

• Palm Beach IT Association
• South Florida Technology Network

Hurricane Tracking

With all the recent storm activity down here we’ve all been spending a lot of time on our favorite weather sites watching the storm tracking and seeing when we need to start putting up the shutters. For the past few years I’ve always relied (and continue to do so) on Weather Underground for weather and storm tracking. It has some great features and has always been easy to access and even works well on Windows Mobile.

A friend recently showed me a new site however for tracking the storms that rivals the wundermap that Weather Underground has…the site is called Storm Pulse and has a really cool interactive map. One of the really cool things about the map is that you can move along the projected timeline of the storm and see where the projected windpath will be so you have a better idea of what you’re in for. It’s usually tough to judge by the vague cone blots how far out the winds reach so that is one feature that really stands on for me on this site.

Mesh Sync Options

I’ve been using Live Mesh for a while now and it’s been working great. I’ll be honest and say the Live Desktop portion isn’t something I use that often but it has been helpful at times to be able to get to files…the main reason it’s not as useful is I can’t run an app there to make use of the data when I’m not at my PC. For example if I wanted to open and edit a document I currently can’t open Word and edit the file within my Mesh Live Desktop. But the main reason I like Mesh is the syncing between multiple systems.

Currently I have it syncing between 3 systems and my Live Desktop. The one complaint I’ve had from the start has been not being able to choose the sync settings for the live desktop…meaning everything had to sync to the live desktop. There are options for all of the PC’s for each folder if it should sync or not sync for this device but it’s not something you can change for the live desktop. At least not from the client PC’s!

I found this post on the Live Mesh forums where Scott Lovegrove posted a little tip that was exactly what I was looking for. I don’t understand why you can’t do this directly from the desktop but at least it let’s me choose not to sync to the Live Desktop for some folders.

This can’t be done from the client, it has to be done from your Live Desktop. If you go to www.mesh.com and go to the folder in question and choose the edit option in there, you can choose to not sync with the desktop from there.

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SL – Windows Live Platform MVP

So this let’s me still sync folders between PC’s without having them go to the Live Desktop. Perfect! In case you’re wondering why I would want to do this…for large folders, such as my Photos, I am well past the storage space limit on Live desktop but would still like to sync the folder on multiple systems (like a poor-mans backup!)

The Cone of Uncertainty

While I still think “The Cone of Uncertainty” should be made into a ride at Disney (think Tower of Terror where you never know what’s going to happen!) there’s times I think Florida is just being used as target practice for the hurricanes. Gustav just passed us by and now Hanna is aimed right at us….and in case she missed, Ike is right behind and staying on target.

So what does this have to do with technology…simple: Good time to make sure your backups work and that you have a secure – OFFSITE – place to store them. Not to mention a plan in place on what goes on after the storm to get things back to normal.