Friday, July 31, 2009

Recovering Deleted Mail in Outlook

Disclaimer: This is only for those using Exchange (and always backup your registry before editing).

So you've hit Shift-Delete on a mail item or perhaps even setup a POP account on a system that totally drains all of your messages from your Inbox. Don't fret, highlight the folder in question, go to Tools > Recover Deleted Items... and bring your messages back from the brink of death.

What's that you say? You don't have Outlook 2007 with item recovery enabled on every folder. Well here's the fix for those with older versions of Outlook:

1. Fire up Regedit (Start > Run... Regedit, OK)
2. Locate and then click the following key in the registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Exchange\Client\Options
3. On the Edit menu, click New > DWORD Value, and then add the following registry value:
         Value name: DumpsterAlwaysOn
         Value: 1
4. Close Regedit

You're done. Now you can retrieve items at will.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Verizon Survey - Not!

Five days after I switched to AT&T, I received an e-mail from Verizon with the request: "Please tell us how we can improve".

I thought I would let them know they might try having a better selection of smart phones (sorry, 19 different flavors of Blackberry only count as one), letting customers know when more suitable plans/pricing is available and how about the ability to use unlocked, non-Verizon approved, phones.

But when I clicked on the survey link in the e-mail I got this:


[caption id="attachment_357" align="alignnone" width="150" caption="No Survey for You!"]No Survey for You![/caption]


I guess they really don't want to know what I think they can do to improve...

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Out of Band Windows Update

As you may or may not know, Microsoft releases patches every second Tuesday of the month so that businesses can plan on having a regular update schedule.

This week Microsoft released two critical patches one for Internet Explorer and the other to fix code generated by Visual Studio. Since this is outside of their normal release cycle, it's definitely time to patch your PC.

And while you are at it, surf on over to see if you're running the latest Java and Adobe software. As Windows continues to make progress on the security front, hackers have been adapting by using vulnerabilities in Java, Acrobat and Flash; and they also use many others, like QuickTime, so it goes a long way to check that software you use is the latest release.

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Now I'm part of the iCrowd

I finally caved and bought an iPhone. The tipping point was that my Verizon contract was up and I could save about $25/month by going to AT&T. (A friend of a friend is the store manager.)

It also helped that the iPhone 3Gs came out, offered a mature OS with a landscape keyboard and the big surprise, cut and paste.

I must say I'm rather enjoying the new phone; finding new Apps is rather addictive. The interface is pleasing and mostly intuitive, iPod functions are nicely done and most importantly, ActiveSync with Exchange works quite well.

I was rather dubious of the AT&T network, but so far so good.

More on being in the "iCrowd" later...

Friday, July 10, 2009

Upgrading the Default Email Address Policy

One of the tasks to perform before removing the last Exchange 2003 server in a 2007 migration is upgrading the Default e-mail address Policy.

The method for upgrading the policy is to fire up the Exchange Command Shell and run the following command:
Set-EmailAddressPolicy "Default Policy" -IncludedRecipients AllRecipients

You may recieve the following error: Set-EmailAddressPolicy:The recipient policy "Default Policy" with mailbox manager settings cannot be managed by the current version of Exchange Management Console. Please use a management console with the same version as the object.

This is typically caused by a Mailbox Management Policy being applied to the Default Policy.

To address this: Open Exchange 2003 System Manager, go to Recipients, Recipient Policies and right-click the Default Policy, select Change property pages..., and uncheck Mailbox Manager Settings.

Now run the upgrade script above and get on with removing that last legacy server.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Gmail Unleashed

Great googly moogly! After five years Gmail (and Apps) is no longer in beta. And instead of yelling it from the rooftops (since many businesses won't rely on beta products) they are just mumbling it quietly.

I guess Google doesn't need the business since they are pretty much just printing money at this point.

Monday, July 6, 2009

Windows 7 Beta to RC Upgrade

Thanks to the MakeTechEasier blog for this tip which saves a full reinstall when upgrading from Windows 7 Beta to the latest RC. This is unsupported by Microsoft, but since it is a release candidate I think you can fudge on the need fom a fresh install. I've already installed quite a bit of software on the beta version and don't intend to relive that experience until Windows 7 is officially released.

In a nutshell the process to follow is to copy the full Windows 7 RC disk to the local system disk, edit the cversion.ini file in the Sources folder: the second line for the minimum client build number needs to be changed to the beta currently installed, in my case it was 7068. Go back to the disk's root directory and launch Setup and follow the usual prompts to upgrade.

Now back to testing and exploring Windows 7; there's a lot of good stuff so far...

Friday, July 3, 2009

Your Own Blog as a Resource

I thought I'd share the irony: for the second time this week I've used my own blog as a resource. Once for Exchange 2007 logging and then today to find the wireless key viewer link.

At least someone finds it useful ;-)

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Xmarks the spot (for bookmarks)

Formerly known as Foxmarks, Xmarks is a great tool that synchronizes your Favorites/Bookmarks (depending on the browser you use).

Just install the small app on each of the computers you wish to keep synchronized and it does the rest. I really wish I would've found this earlier; years of copying and sorting on numerous computers left my bookmarks a mess.

After one long flight to Chicago I cleaned up most of the redundant and disorganised mess. Once I got back online, Xmarks replicated the changes to its online database and updated my two other computers within minutes of bringing them online.

And did I mention it's free for Windows, Mac and Linux?