President Rock Star? - Are we putting our president on the wrong pedestal

In the USA, our president is supposed to be a Chief Executive and budgeter, not a rock star.  Yet, we seem to have let this role in our government mutate in to Rock-Star-in-chief.  This excellent article from Reason Magazine on The Cult of the Presidency talks about this evolution.

Who can we blame for the radical expansion of executive power? Look no further than you and me.

Gene Healy from the June 2008 issue

“I ain’t running for preacher,” Republican presidential candidate Phil Gramm snarled to religious right activists in 1995 when they urged him to run a campaign stressing moral themes. Several months later, despite Gramm’s fund raising prowess, the Texas conservative finished a desultory fifth place in the Iowa caucuses and quickly dropped out of the race. Since then, few candidates have made Gramm’s mistake. Serious contenders for the office recognize that the role and scope of the modern presidency cannot be so narrowly confined. Today’s candidates are running enthusiastically for national preacher—and much else besides.

In the revival tent atmosphere of Barack Obama’s campaign, the preferred hosanna of hope is “Yes we can!” We can, the Democratic front-runner promises, not only create “a new kind of politics” but “transform this country,” “change the world,” and even “create a Kingdom right here on earth.” With the presidency, all things are possible.

Even though Republican nominee John McCain tends to eschew rainbows and uplift in favor of the grim satisfaction that comes from serving a “cause greater than self-interest,” he too sees the presidency as a font of miracles and the wellspring of national redemption. A president who wants to achieve greatness, McCain suggests, should emulate Teddy Roosevelt, who “liberally interpreted the constitutional authority of the office” and “nourished the soul of a great nation.” President George W. Bush, when passing the GOP torch to his former rival in March, declared that the Arizona senator “will bring determination to defeat an enemy and a heart big enough to love those who hurt.” Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, suggests she is “ready on Day 1 to be commander in chief of our economy.”

Gates and Jobs sit down for a chat

I could not resist sharing this.

Exchange 2010 SP1 beta Prerequs

I have been playing with the Exchange Server 2010 SP1 beta in my test lab.  Thus far, I'm pretty impressed.  It upgraded my lab servers cleanly.  I upgraded a 2 node DAG nicely as well.  I'm using Windows Server 2008 R2 (fewer prereqs that have be installed.) 

There are  few hot fixes that you will need to install, though. 
http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/KB979533
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=183148

Administering Microsoft E-mail Servers: The basics

I am proposing a book that would cover the basics of administering e-mail servers in a Microsoft environment. This would book would not be version specific, but would cover basics such as DNS, PKI/certificates, Outlook/MAPI profiles, reverse proxies, storage, SMTP, POP/IMAP, fighting spam, etc... The target audience is new e-mail administrators.

First, I think there is a good potential audience for such a book. Second, it would free books suh as the "Mastering" books from having to cover the basics.

I'd like to hear some feedback from people about this idea.

Mastering Exchange Server 2010 book

The Exchange Server 2010 book is now "on the streets" and I have gotten a lot of good feedback from people. However, one thing I want to make sure that potential purchasers know. The book currently has no Database Availability Group (DAG) content. The book is intended for new administrators (new-to-product and new-to-version) rather than a technical "deep dive." Our original intent was to follow-up with an "Advanced" book. Not sure where that is, but we are looking at options for people that want DAG content.

Exchange Remote Connectivity Analyzer explained so I can understand it

This is one of the cutest things I have seen in a long time. A young administrator explains to us the value of the Exchange Remote Connectivity Analyzer. :-) I wonder if I can get my Siberian Husky to "woo" an explanation of the RCA?

Interesting AT&T "dial" features

I knew it was possible to "dial" a number on your AT&T phone and get my minutes balance for the month. But there is more than just minutes:

*BAL# to check your balance
*MIN# to check minutes remaining
*DATA# for data remaining (if you don't have unlimited data)
*PAY to pay your bill
*NEW# to see if you are eligible to upgrade to a new phone

Just enter the above "numbers" in to the phone and press dial. I used to have TMobile and they had some similar features.

I had an annoying problem today while working with a fresh installation of Exchange Server 2010.  Everything installed beautifully.  But, when I went to open the Exchange Management Shell or the Exchange Management Console, I got this error:

VERBOSE: Connecting to hnlex05.somorita.local

[hnlex05.somorita.local] Connecting to remote server failed with the following error message : Access is denied. For more information, see the about_Remote_Troubleshooting Help topic.
+ CategoryInfo : OpenError: (System.Manageme....RemoteRunspace:RemoteRunspace) [], PSRemotingTransportException
+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : PSSessionOpenFailed
 
After a more troubleshooting than I'm willing to admit, I found that the time on the Exchange server was wrong.  The moral of the story?  Don't forget the basics!

Photovoltaic rocks! Look ma! No power used!

I recently added 15 new photovolatic panels to my solar power array. My daily "net power" consumption has now dropped to zero. I produce "excess" power during the day which is sent back out to the Hawaiian Electric Company grid. They use the power elsewhere and give me credit for the power they consume. Then at night or on cloudy days, I use up the credit. My minimum bill is $18.26 which is the "connection fee."

Exchange 2010 SP1 beta ships

Greetings from TechEd 2010! If you are like me and you have been waiting on the beta of Exchange Server 2010 SP1 beta to ship, it has arrived! Time to get those test labs fired up and start seeing some of the improvements including the new personal archive improvements and improvements to Outlook Web App!

TechEd 2010 Preconference session - Thanks everyone

To everyone that attended the pre-con session at TechEd, thanks much for attending. David and I had a great time doing the presentation. I think we probably could have spent 2 or 3 DAYS talking about Exchange 2010 and sharing our thoughts (and hearing yours!) Thanks for attending!

What happened to my targetAddress attributes????

Like many things I learn in IT, I learned a new lesson "the hard way". We are migrating from an old forest to a new forest using Quest. The Quest mailbox migration, once it completes the migration of a mailbox, puts on the user's targetAddress attribute the SMTP of the new location. For example, the mailbox's new SMTP address is Luke@newdomain.com, so it puts in the old mailbox's targetAddress attribute SMTP:Luke@newdomain.com.

The Exchange "move mailbox" wizard actually CLEARS this attribute if you move the mailbox from one database to another in the same organization. We needed to shutdown some old mailbox servers, so we ExMerged all of the data out of the mailboxes that had been migrated, then moved the empty mailboxes to a single Exchange server.

Forwarding immediately stopped working. After some frenzied investigation, we found that the targetAddress for the moved mailboxes had been cleared. A call to our Quest consultants confirmed this. So, keep this in mind if you have to move mailboxes that have a targetAddress set on them!!!!

Mastering Microsoft Exchange Server 2010: Best Practices for Deployments and Upgrades

David Elfassy and I are presenting a pre-conference session at TechEd 2010 in New Orleans this year. Hope to see some of my blog readers there!
_______________________________
A stable and well defined deployment strategy will provide a problem-free implementation of Exchange Server 2010. Administrators can have peace of mind when managing e-mail systems and can therefore go deeper; and explore the new features provided with this latest version of Microsoft′s premiere messaging solution.

Written and presented by co-authors of the book "Mastering Microsoft Exchange Server 2010", this pre-conference seminar brings years of Exchange Server deployment expertise to Tech⋅Ed attendees. This 300-350 level seminar focuses on the deployment technologies and best practices for deploying Exchange Server 2010. Content and demonstrations concentrate on the following Exchange server technologies:

• Continuous Availability and Site Resilience for Mailbox servers
• Deploying and configuring Client Access Arrays
• Implementing redundancy for message routing
• Best practices for upgrading an organization to Exchange Server 2010

Walk away from this seminar with the tools necessary to implement a new Exchange deployment, upgrade your existing messaging environment or stabilize your existing deployment. This seminar is designed for IT professionals who manage messaging environments and consultants who deploy messaging solutions.

Exchange Server 2010 SP1 archiving features and Outlook 2007

The Exchange team blog contained a great post today about the future of the Exchange archiving features. This includes the much requested ability to move the archive mailbox to a different database. However, they also announced that there will be an update Outlook 2007 that will allow the user to access the personal archive. This is big news for organizations that are still in the middle of an Office 2007 upgrade!!!

Thanks to the Exchange and Outlook teams for listening to the customers!

No route was found for the recipient server.

I saw a very weird problem this past week on a system running Exchange Server 2003. The organization has 2 separate Exchange organizations/forests. They are in the middle of migration from OldDomain.com to NewDomain.com and are using the Quest Migration tools.

Many of the users had mailboxes in the new domain, but their new domain mailbox had an alternate recipient that forwarded all mail to a contact in olddomain.com.

When Quest first sync'ed the "old" mailboxes with the "new" mailboxes, it removed the alternate recipient and added to the new mailbox a targetAddress of UserDomain@source.olddomain.com.

The problem is that for ONE user out of hundreds, anytime that someone sent him a message, they got back HUNDREDS of NDR messages. The user had not yet been migrated to the new domain, so the targetAddress attribute was checked and it was correct. NDR message was:

No route was found for the recipient server. Please contact your system administrator.
servername.newdomain.com #5.4.4

The message was originating from the sender's mailbox server. After lots of examining logs and message tracking, we found that the message WAS actually getting to the intended recipient, but the NDRs just kept coming in.

Ultimately for this one user, in the new domain on the alternate recipient forward, the checkbox to send to both the mailbox AND the alternate recipient was checked. But, the alternate recipient address was now blank. We had to enable a forwarder temporarily, clear that checkbox, and then remove the forwarder.

Photo voltaic revisited

Since I started "greening" my house this past year, I have had a lot of people asking me questions about it. First, I don't really see this as a "green" project as much as a "I hate contributing to the political mess involved in using imported oil" mess. A long term investment in my home as well as reducing my electric bill are two of the other advantages. Being "green" is a nice to have, but not my one of the primary motivators.

I'm about to add the next phase to the roof; an additional 15 panels and inverters. This should reduce my average Hawaiian Electric Company (HECO) bill down to around around $8.00. That is the "monthly connection fee".

Here are the answers to a lot of the questions:

• The system uses SunPower 220 P/V panels that are around 5' long by 2.5' feet wide and Enphase 190 DC to AC micro-inverters. Each panel has its own inverter.
• The system "wakes up" as soon as the first light shines on it (around 6:45AM)
• Optimal power production occurs between about 9AM and 3PM. A 6 hour daily window; though the system produces power as long as there is some light.
  
• During a typical day, each panel produces around 1KWH. So, 15 panels usually produce between 14 and 16KWH in the winter. However, I have had several 19KWH days.
  
• The total system cost was around $28,000 including the mounting on the roof and all of the electrical work necessary to tie 3 separate P/V circuits (just 15A breakers) in to the house. The 3 separate circuits was a design decision that I made.
  
• If you want to come by and see the system, sure, come on by. But there is not much to "see" besides some circuit breakers and the panels themselves. The real interesting stuff is in the software which you can see from where you are sitting. The Enphase software allows you to view my system's out in near-realtime. Well, about a 30-45 minute delay. See McBee Photovoltaic system.
  
• For the 2009 tax year, I'll get approximately $19,000 in tax credits (state and federal). Thus, the actual out-of-pocket cost for the first year is around $9,000.
  
• Actual "payback" at the current cost of electricity (around $0.24 / KWH) is around 7 years.
  
• If you are considering this and have the sunlight available, do solar hot water first. Second, put in a "low flow" pool pump (if you have a pool). Both of those provide a better return on investment. I have both; P/V was the next logical step.
• The panels are on the south-facing side of my roof. They take up about 1/4 of the south facing roof space. For the most part, my neighbors cannot see them.
  
• I financed the first year and most of it back from the tax credits. The remainder, I paid back from my savings account.
  
• I am adding 15 additional panels next month and am using SunPower's "no interest and no financing for a year" program to finance them as well.
  
• I picked the SunPower 220 panels and Enphase micro-inverters because liked the idea of the panels functioning independently. The sizing of the panels and the inverters was confirmed by the vendor (Sunetric Solar Power of Hawaii).
• The vendor (Sunetric) did ALL of the installation work including the electrical work, permitting, HECO paperwork, and mounting the panels. I just watched and took pictures. :-)
  
• There are NO batteries; I am not 'off-the-grid'. Maybe in Phase 3 I'll do that for some critical house-hold things such as the refrigerator, microwave, and a few outlets.
  
• On average, I "push back" to HECO around 6 to 8KWH per day of electricity that is then used somewhere else on the grid.
  
• At night, I use power just like everyone else. HECO gives me "credit" for the power I sent to them during the day. The idea is to "size" the system so that it generates in about 6 hours the total amount of power you need for 24 hours. HECO only gives a 'credit' for the power. If I consistently generate more power than I need each day, HECO wins. They will NOT pay me for the excess power I produce; only a one year credit.
  
• If the commercial power fails, my P/V array shuts down. That is a feature of the inverter. The inverters have to have an "A/C push" from the utility otherwise they don't work. This is so that if HECO shuts off power on my street, I don't keep pushing power out and shock their lineman (line-person?)
  

Mastering Exchange Server 2010 is now available

Yes, everyone, it is FINALLY here! The Mastering Exchange Server 2010 book is finally on the shelves. Well, actually, given how bookstores are stocking technical books now, it is probably NOT on the shelf, but you can order it.

Writing this book has been a big undertaking and this is the first major book that I have written while also having a full-time job. Over the past 10 years of writing, I have usually been a contractor and thus had more time to write.

Putting together a 1,000 page technical book is a time consuming endeavor. And, often, a huge part of that time is fighting with the software to make it do what you need it to do. Crashed virtual machines, poorly documented beta software, and hardware problems all slow down the over all writing process. Sometimes it takes 2 or 3 hours worth of "lab" work just to write 2 paragraphs and get a screen capture.

Regardless of what authors will tell you, most books do not get written by any one author nor reviewed by any single editor. I'll be the first to admit that MANY people were involved in the writing, reviewing, and editing of this book. Some people wrote a few paragraphs or did a first-pass technical review, while others contributed multiple chapters.

The technical editor for the book was Ross Smith; I'm not sure that Ross is going to speak to me anymore. :-) We had a number of spirited in-person, e-mail and "Word" discussions during the TE review. Ross did an excellent job and I'm sure he did not realize just how much work this was going to be. The book is a far, far better book because of Ross' involvement. If there is to be an "Advanced Administration" book, I hope that Ross will consider being involved from the start.

My co-author, David Elfassy jumped in to the project when it became apparent I would not get finished anytime before the next version of Exchange was released. Even with multiple projects on this plate and a new child on the way, David pushed ahead. Devin Ganger was helpful early on in the project and produced several chapters for me. Ken St. Cyr wrote 2 excellent chapters in the middle of trying to finish his own book. Other authors that contributed full or partial chapters included Doug Fidler, Pat Richard, John Rodriguez, Randy Williams, Michael B. Smith, Martin Tuip, and Ilse Van Criekinge.

Many of my fellow Exchange MVPs, MCT's, MCSEs, and Exchange Team members helped me with technical questions, confirmations of technical facts, or insight in to a product or function including Brian Tirch, David Espinosa, Melissa Travers, William Lefkovics, Paul Robichaux, John Fullbright, Peter O'Dowd, Scott Schnoll, Nino Bilic, Harold Wong, Evan Dodds, Rich Matheisen, Glen Scales, Missy Koslosky, Mark Arnold, and Bharat Suneja.

Some of the feedback I have gotten from the past 2 Mastering books was that they were "too advanced" for some administrators. The feeling was that someone could not just pick up the book and learn how to become an e-mail administrator. Maybe they could learn how to be an Exchange administrator, but not an e-mail administrator. The first few chapters of this new book includes more of the basics of e-mail system administration, but I'm beginning to think that there should be a 200 - 400 page book on that topic (client/server systems, SMTP, MAPI, RPCs, POP/IMAP, DNS, PKI, etc...) [Would you buy this for your junior administrators?]

The book is missing a number of things that we just did not have enough time or page space to include. Notably missing is database availability groups (DAGs) and high availability scenarios. This was a decision partially out of necessity; we just could not include the necessary material in the few remaining pages since we had a "maximum page" limit under which we had to stay. I did not want to write 25 or 30 pages of DAG material only to have it severely lacking. To properly cover DAGs and high availability, I really felt like we needed about 100 - 150 pages. I have also never felt like high availability belonged in a book that was intended to help someone "master the concepts and basic features of the product". However, I suspect for medium sized and large businesses, DAGs are going to become a requirement.

At this point, I don't know if there will be an "Advanced Administration" book or not. I feel there is a need and certainly there is the material for such a book. We will see.

For all of you out there that have bought a previous edition of this book or might buy this one in the future, thanks much for your support!

Visio stencils for Exchange Server 2010

The Exchange Server 2010 Visio stencils are here! Including my favorite, the "phishing" shape!

Outlook 2010 supports photos from GAL

For people that have been longing to publish photos in to the Active Directory and then have those photos viewable in Outlook. The thumbnailPhoto attribute is now being used to show this information. I had talked about this a year or so ago when talking about how to better size pictures to load in to the jpegPhoto attribute. My Directory Manager and Directory Update products allow you to upload a photo in to either the jpegPhoto or thumbnailPhoto attributes. If you have used the jpegPhoto attribute to upload your photos, it is a pretty simple matter to use a tool like ADModify.NET to copy the photos to thumbnailPhoto.

In the article GAL Photos in Exchange 2010 and Outlook 2010, Bharat Suneja talks about how to take advantage of this feature. An especially useful new feature is the ability to upload the photos from the Exchange Management Shell using the Import-RecipientDataProperty cmdlet. The below text is from Bharat's article:

Loading pictures into Active Directory

Now you can start uploading pictures to Active Directory using the Import-RecipientDataProperty cmdlet, as shown in this example:

Import-RecipientDataProperty -Identity "Bharat Suneja" -Picture -FileData ([Byte[]]$(Get-Content -Path "C:\pictures\BharatSuneja.jpg" -Encoding Byte -ReadCount 0))

To perform a bulk operation you can use Get-Mailbox cmdlet with your choice of filter (or Get-DistributionGroupMember if you want to do this for members of a distribution group), and pipe the mailboxes to a foreach loop. You can also retrieve the user name and path to the thumbnail picture from a CSV/TXT file.

My roof goes photo-voltaic

If you follow me on Facebook, you already know this, but this past fall I added the first of 15 photo voltaic panels to my roof. Another 15 coming in the next few months.

The system was "sized" to produce about 14-15KWH per day, but I'm usually producing between 14 and 18KWH per day. And that is in the winter time!

My daily electric usage averaged around 40-45KWH per day. The pool pump is the biggest offender (at around 10KWH per day), but I'm putting in a more efficient pool pump this month.

The system has been operational for the last 3 months and I'm VERY pleased at this point. Here is my the average daily usage for my last bill. I'm down to about 20KWH per day that I have to "buy" from the electric company.

Great week in Lake Tahoe

Just got back from a great week of skiing and snowboarding in South Lake Tahoe. Tahoe is definitely one of my favorite places to visit. Thanks to Tim at Heavenly Village Condo Rentals at the Marriott. Lake Tahoe Condo Rentals by owner at Heavenly Village.