Wednesday, August 12, 2009

We interrupt our regular programming...

This post won't mean much to many but will mean something to someone - if you're out there you know who you are!

1. The MS Exchange Recipient Update Service (RUS) generates mail proxy addresses for all mail enabled objects in an Exchange organisation, it ensures that all those objects have a valid SMTP address along the lines of username@domain.com. An RUS experiencing problems can have a major impact on mail routing.

2. The information store database in Exchange (Standard Ed.) was defaulted at 16GB prior to Service Pack 2. That limit was increased to 18GB and the maximum possible capped at 75GB. On the Enterprise version there is no default limit and no upper limit set in the software.

3. Windows Server 2003 has five Flexible Single Master Operations (FSMO) roles (also known as Operations Master Roles). They are: Schema Master, Domain Naming Master, Infrastructure Master, Relative ID Master, and PDC Emulator.

4. NTDSUTIL.EXE is a command-line management tool for Active Directory, that allows for all kinds of activities to be performed, including database maintenance, master operations, and metadata cleanup.

Like I said, this will make sense to someone - hope you're reading!

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Microsoft Courier - is the Computer Book finally here?

Check out this link for a first glipse at a new product coming from Microsoft.

http://gizmodo.com/5365299/courier-first-details-of-microsofts-secret-tablet

Fist impressions are very favourable, though the device is in late prototyping and MS aren't even near an official announcement (all the details on the web are the result of a leak from Microsoft).

This could be the form factor to put a much needed spark back into Microsoft and the computer world in general. If nothing else, it looks like the computer book Penny had in Inspector Gadget, so that's cool!

553 sorry, that domain isn't in my list of allowed rcpthosts

Here's an annoying little error that I've just come across.

I've tried to send an email from Outlook and I've received a reply from "System Administrator" with the word "Undeliverable" in the subject field along with the subject of the mail I tried to send.

In the message itself I get the following:

Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients.
   
    Subject:    Out TEST 1
    Sent: 09/10/2009 14:49

The following recipient(s) cannot be reached:

    'mtminnock@gmail.com' on 09/10/2009 14:49
        553 sorry, that domain isn't in my list of allowed rcpthosts (#5.7.1)

The message is a little bit cryptic as the idea of a list of allowed recipients indicates that there's a list of disallowed recipients and that might lead you to believe that your firewall or anti-virus systems is acting up and doing more than it's supposed to.

What's actually happening is that Outlook is trying to tell you that your outbound email settings are wrong. In my case it was the "Outgoing mail server (SMTP)" setting that was wrong and this had been caused by my changing Internet Service Providers. My new ISP has a different SMTP server and I needed to tell Outlook what this servers name was.

In order to change the SMTP setting for a given e-mail account in Outlook you need to do the following:

1. In Outlook go to Tools > Account Settings. Select the account you want to fix and click on Change.
2. About halfway down the window that opens is a section headed "Server Information". In the third box down enter the correct name of the SMTP server (this can be obtained from your ISP). Click Next and Finish and that's it!