Vladville - Exchange 2003 SP2 for SBS

Here is a nice down to earth walk through with some very good cautions for installing Exchange 2003 SP2 on a SBS server.

Vladville - Exchange 2003 SP2 for SBS: "Exchange 2003 SP2 on SBS"

Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2!!!

This is a WONDERFUL service pack for Exchange 2003 that adds a ton of features and truly brings exchange 2003 to where it should have been on Day 1.

Here is more on it and links to downloads.

Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)

Turns out I have been making a lot of these mistakes....let's see how long it takes for me to fix them. :)

Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox): "Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes"

do you miss your old Backpack?

Check out the new online Backpack.  Its an online collaboration tool to stay organized.

Here it is.

This is from Chad over at Tech, Gadgets, and IT.

Apple has One more thing...

If you haven’t heard yet, there’s a new iPod!  Steve Jobs’ timing is impeccable.  Its 15–30% thinnner than the previous 20gb color iPod.  It comes in 2 flavors 30GB and 60GB for $299 (same price as before) and $399. 

Of course there’s the nano from 5 weeks ago that coincided with the new version of iTunes, but now there is another new version 6 to support the video.  That’s right the new ipods do video.  You can purchase music videos, download trailers, and now TV Shows they day after they air!!  Here’s more on the new iPod.  and here’s more on iTunes 6 (which includes gifting by the way.)

Then there’s Front Row.  So far its like Apple’s answer to Windows Media Center, with a remote! Here’s more on Front Row.

They also announced a new iMac.  Figures I just bought my wife a 20inch iMac in July.  Oh well.  Click here for more on the iMac.

Here’s the point of my summary of their announcements.  Apple is doing such an incredible job with applications, with hardware, and with marketing them that they are the best out there in presenting cutting edge technology to HOME USERS.  Apple can’t compete in the IT market for the majority of businesses outside of the creative world, but they are certainly doing a GREAT job transforming the home user experience and in my opinion raising the bar for what Microsoft will need to do to innovate with their applications to compete in the home user space.

I live in both worlds and the more I know about Microsoft’s products and the more I know about Apple’s prodcuts the more I can appreciate them both for their strengths.  I am most definitely a fanatic for both. 

Here’s Steve Job’s presentation.

 

Microsoft and Yahoo may merge IM

Microsoft and Yahoo may merge IM

Microsoft and Yahoo, holders of 44% of IM (instant messaging) traffic globally, will effectively merge their services. Although neither company would confirm the story to the Wall Street Journal, reports suggest that the services will work together without the use of a third-party client, like Trillian. Both Microsoft and Yahoo have pledged moves towards interoperability for some [...]

Get Skype off your Corporate Network

Skype is a P2P app, all clients relay traffic instead of going through central servers. Even if you aren't making a call on Skype, you are still relaying traffic for all other Skype users.

If you watch your network bandwidth, a relay can use 80-128K, double that for actually making a call plus relaying.

Its in the fine print of the agreement for the software. Like anyone actually reads it though.

If you had 10 clients on your network, figure the bandwidth being sucked out of your T1!

I'm going to do a sweep of my network to see if its on any workstations without IT knowing about it.

Here is the article from Network World.

http://www.networkworld.com/columnists/2005/092605tolly.html

Office 12 will support PDF natively in all apps�

Some huge news on the Office 12 front….Office 12 will support PDF natively in all apps.  Just how much support I don’t know exactly…here is a link to some good info on the announcement that Microsoft made first to its MVP’s.

http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/archive/2005/10/01/476067.aspx