get ready to take your Microsoft exams…
On Sept 15th Microsoft are bringing back the second chance offering, meaning if you fail the exam on your first try you will be able to take it a second time free of charge.
See Prometric’s site for more details;
http://www.prometric.com/microsoft/2ndchance
Apple is to offer iPhone customers who bought the device before a sharp price cut a $100 store credit, chief executive Steve Jobs said.
The offer applies to people who bought iPhones at either Apple or AT&T stores and who did not get rebates or other considerations, Jobs said on Apple’s Website.
While Apple has not disclosed how many units it has sold to date, it has reported selling 270,000 iPhones on the first two days and expects to sell one million units by the end of September, potentially costing the company tens of millions of dollars.
Apple shares fell 1.2 per cent to $135.06 in late afternoon trading on Nasdaq.
"Even though we are making the right decision to lower the price of iPhone, and even though the technology road is bumpy, we need to do a better job taking care of our early iPhone customers as we aggressively go after new ones with a lower price," Mr Jobs said.
Apple also has a policy to refund the difference to customers who bought a product within 14 days of a price drop.
On Wednesday, Apple slashed the price of its $600 iPhone model to $400, saying it wanted to make the device – a combination cell phone, music player and Web browser – more affordable. AT&T is the exclusive service provider for the device.
Have you ever switched out a users computer and then they start complaining that when thay start to type a name in the Too: column in outlook the names do not show up anymore? I would venture a guess & say Yes!
Well luckily programmer Nir Sofer has created a tool called NK2View for free distribution to help fill this void.
Check out his webpage for further details;
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/outlook_nk2_autocomplete.html
Click here to download this English version; http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/nk2view.zip
Finally someone at Microsoft stood up & listened to the public…
https://support.microsoft.com/contactus2/emailcontact.aspx?scid=sw;en;1410&WS=hotfix
Credit to Curt Spanburgh for finding this little gem.
Many Exchange Server deployments face mail flow issues because of bad message routing configurations. Erroneous configurations are often caused by an administrator’s lack of message routing knowledge and misconceptions about SMTP virtual servers and connectors.
An SMTP virtual server is an instance of the SMTP service running on an Exchange server. It is bound to a particular IP address (or group of IP addresses) and port, usually the well-known TCP port 25.
Connectors, on the other hand, do not belong to a particular Exchange server as such. Routing Group Connector and SMTP Connector are the two connectors most used in Exchange Server deployments. There are a number of other connectors to third-party messaging systems like Connector for Lotus Notes, Connector for GroupWise, et al — but most organizations do not use the latter connectors on an ongoing basis.
The Routing Group Connector connects Exchange Server routing groups. Within a routing group, Exchange servers can exchange messages directly to/from each other. However, to send/receive messages to/from another routing group in the organization, a connector is required.
The SMTP Connector is generally used to connect to other SMTP messaging systems, including the Internet. SMTP connectors can be used to connect routing groups as well, but routing group connectors perform this function well, and are remarkably easy to set up.
Setting up smarthosts on a SMTP virtual server: Smarthosts are used to connect Exchange Server to an external (to the organization) messaging system. Typical use of a smarthost involves relaying outbound SMTP email to a non-Exchange SMTP host in perimeter networks; or to an ISP or hosted service provider that may offer functionality like mail relaying and spam and virus scanning.
In an Exchange Server organization with a single Exchange server, setting up a smarthost on the SMTP virtual server can work, and may not cause any issues. However, for organizations with more than a single Exchange server, this will stop messages from being routed to other Exchange servers in the organization.
It is a good practice to set up smarthosts for particular address spaces. This includes all non-local address spaces designated by the * address space, and generally thought of as outbound Internet email.
Authentication settings on Internet-facing SMTP servers: Yet another misconception exists about use of authentication for Internet-facing SMTP servers. Common sense dictates that Internet-facing servers and services should have some sort of authentication — perhaps even encrypted authentication so the credentials are not plaintext.
However, to receive email from SMTP hosts on the Internet — which neither have any interaction with your organization nor have any type of credentials to authenticate with — you will have to unlearn this piece of conventional wisdom. You have to leave the host free to accept SMTP connections from anonymous SMTP hosts.
Relay settings on Internet-facing SMTP servers: Exchange 2000 and Exchange 2003 have relaying turned off by default. It is a secure configuration that works. If the SMTP server is responsible for receiving inbound Internet email, it should not allow any sending hosts to relay. In other words, it should not accept email for any domains other than the ones your Exchange Server organization is responsible for, or is configured to accept.
If you have SMTP clients that need to send email using SMTP — like remote or mobile devices using IMAP4 or POP3 clients — it is best to set up an additional SMTP virtual server that supports authentication. If requirements dictate, you may also want to encrypt the SMTP session using SSL/TLS.
Microsoft Outlook clients connected to Exchange Server using MAPI do not use SMTP to send email to the server. Devices like printers, scanners and faxes (or their multi-function variants) that send documents by email to internal users do not generally need the ability to relay. Sending email to recipients/SMTP address spaces for which Exchange Server is responsible is not relaying.
However, if such devices use Exchange Server to send outbound SMTP email to external recipients, they need the ability to relay. This is accomplished by adding the device’s IP address from SMTP Virtual Server Properties -> Access tab -> Relay.
Other hosts that may possibly need relaying permissions are different line-of-business application servers like customer relationship management (CRM) or enterprise resource planning (ERP) servers. These need to send SMTP email to external recipients using Exchange Server, and to communicate with IT management servers that send notifications using SMTP.
The important point to consider is that relaying needs to be allowed only for those applications that have to send email to recipients external to your Exchange Server organization — typically Internet recipients.