Simon Barratt

Live Meeting plugin for Outlook problem

I have been experimenting with this plugin to simplify the use of Live Meeting within out company.  On the surface it sounds great, you just create a meeting as usual, then from the attendee list you can specify who will be a presenter and send it.  The plugin then sends two types of invites out: one to the presenters and one to the attendees, the main difference being the URL required to join the meeting.

However, we have had to uninstall this plugin and prevent its use within FMC due to a pretty significant bug (feature??).  The problem is, if you should add or remove an attendee from the meeting, then it automatically sends the meeting update out to all attendees regardless.  You loose the option to send the update to only the added or deleted attendees.  This is not acceptable in our environment - it generates far too much confusion and noise.

The official word from Microsoft is that this is working as designed and that if we want to invite an additional person to a meeting, then you need to forward the invite to them.  I really hate it when software companies refuse to accept something as a bug and claim it is working as designed!

Oh, I forgot to mention, once this plugin is installed, it doesn't just screw with Live Meeting enabled meetings, but any meetings on your calendar! Oh Joy!

Honour, but not offer

I just got off the phone with Verizon - disputing my FIOS Internet bill.

Apparently, my price has gone up (from $39.99 to $47.99) due to my previous contract expiring.  It would of been nice, of course, if they told me my contract was expiring and that there is a price hike for new contracts!

Any how, whilst waiting and waiting and waiting, I pulled up the verizon FIOS price page.  I see the $47.99 price, but also notice that the download speed offered is 10Mbps now - I am currently at 5Mbps.  So when the lady finally returns from the parallel universe she just visited, I ask her about the additional bandwidth.  "Oh, would you like me to activate that?" she says!  "Yes please" say I, and off she goes again.  After a few more minutes she returns, saying it is taking too long to activate and that she has placed the order which will take effect later today, and she didn't want to keep me on hold any longer.  I then enquire about why I had to ask about the bandwidth - that as they had pushed up the price, so shouldn't they also push the bandwidth improvements too?

Her response: "We Honour, not offer".  I beg your pardon??!!  So it seems that Verzion are more than willing to put up the price, but only give you the extra speed if you ask for it!

What a joke!

Champions League

Here we go...

I am looking forward to the game to tomorrow.  Hope Chelski can do the deed against Scum U!

I'm predicting 2-1 to Chelski.

This song send shivers down my spine (louder the better)

FMC

One question I get from time to time is: "What does FMC do?".  It is quite a complex one to answer.  We do a lot!

Well, Corporate Communications have just released this quick video.  I think they have done a great job at summarising what is a relatively diverse company.

Not bad for a stodgy old chemical company, with a top 20 oldest registered domain name!

WTF???

I can't quite beleive what I read this morning! Shinawatra has decided to fire Sven at the end of the season!

The guy must have his reasons, but I can't guess what. Sven has put out a good first season as the manager. We have played good football to watch and have perfomed better than we have for a long time. The squad has been built to some degree, and I was expecting it to be added to during the summer.

One major milestone achieved this season was the elusive double over our scum neighbours. For City fans everywhere he will be remembered for that alone!

Considering he was so late in becoming the manager last year, I think he forged a new team well, and I was hopeful for more improvement next season. Shinawatra supposedly laid out a 3 year plan as part of his goal to take City global. We might not be ending the season as well as we started it, but have certainly achieved the goal set for the first season.

So who will replace him? Who knows...Mourinho??? hahahahahaha

All the best Sven! Thanks for the season.

Man’s Reach

It never ceases to amaze me how far man's reach can, and will, take us!  With that in mind, it is so exciting to see the next great journey take shape.

Today, two power houses of the 21st century, have announced their intent to colonise Mars!

Virgin and Google have teamed up to make the dream a reality.  For all you budding space travellers read on and sign up to volunteer as a pioneer of space.

Update: Who would of thought??!!  This was nothing more than an April Fools joke! ;-)

Query Based Distribution Groups

One of the features I like in Exchange 2003 that Domino 6.5 was missing, is the Query Based Distribution Groups (QBDG) feature.  This simply allows you to define an LDAP query against AD for email distribution purposes.  This allows you to take advantage of various pieces of data to simplify mailing list maintenance.  It does not completely replace the need for "traditional" mailing lists, but it a good step forward.

However, one side effect of this technology is the inability of he user to know who is going to receive the email. "They have to trust the system"!  Most of the time this is ok, but with some people they need that final confirmation.

You can preview the results in AD Users & Computers, but that is no use to the user.  Here is a method (I am sure there are others)

Using AD Users & Computers copy the LDAP query associated with the QBDG, then open a command line and type/paste the following:

csvde -f xxxx.csv -r "(&(!cn=SystemMailbox{*})(&(&(&(& (mailnickname=*) (| (&(objectCategory=person)(objectClass=user)(|(homeMDB=*)(msExchHomeServerName=*))) )))(objectCategory=user)(description=XXXXXXX))))" -l DN,objectClass,description

This uses the csvde command to export the results of the query into a .csv file.  This article provides more detail.

Hopefully, in a future version Microsoft will just allow you to export the result straight from the UI!

Technology

Another 6 pointer!

I had a great conversation with my little boy yesterday.  Basically, it went along the lines of "I reckon City with beat United 2 nil."  He smiled, but didn't think it likely.  He wanted to know where we were playing, I said "Old Trafford" and then he really didn't think it was likely!

But for 92 minutes today I had it spot on!  As you can imagine I was gutted to only end up winning 2-1 in the end!!!!

This result, coupled with this result, concludes the double for this season!!  Not since the 1969/70 season have we done it!  

This Derby was more emotional that usual, as it coincided with the 50th anniversary of the Munich Air disaster.  Thankfully all the fans treated the 1 minutes silence with the respect it deserved.  But once down to business City showed discipline to keep United at arms length and worked a few chances, gabbing 2 goals in the first half!

Great Result!

Microsoft RoundTable

I took delivery of the RoundTable device last Friday.  On the surface it looks very eye catchy and garners lots of "what the hell is that?" types of comments!

Installation was straight forward, although the sparsity of documentation is concerning.  I had no idea what the Ethernet cable was for, until I started Googling around for more information.  It turns out you can connect it to you LAN for remote management and also allow the device to auto download firmware updates from Microsoft.

As a speaker phone, it works very well.  Clear and loud!  As a webcam it appears to offer good video quality, and the auto switching to focus on the current speaker seems to work very well.  Not had chance to play with the panoramic view yet, as that requires Live Meeting 2007 to test, which I have not got around to yet.

Now for some weirdness!  Currently it has a strange habit of ringing out every 30-45 minutes for no obvious reason - three quick rings, then silence again.  Very annoying and needs to be fixed asap.  I have a call into MS to see what they say.  I need a solution quick - my colleagues near the conference room are getting a tad annoyed with the ringing - it wakes them up!!!!

Launchy

For those keyboard junkies out there (of which I consider myself a member of) you might want to take a look at Launchy.  This is a very handy application launcher for Windows, that allows you to keep your hands where they are most effective - the keyboard!

It is not quite as powerful as QuickSilver on the Mac, but it is a damn sight better than navigating through the morass of menus, thrown up from the Start button.

Once you have it installed, the default key to activate is Alt-Space, then just type a few letter of the application you want to launch, and off you go.

It does allow you to customise the behaviour and locations that need to be indexed, overall it works pretty well - check it out!

EOL for Digital Broadcasts

In case you don't know, analogue TV broadcasts will come to an end on February 17, 2009 in the USA.  For those of you who still have analogue TVs and receive broadcasts over the air (not FIOS, cable or Satellite) then your TV will just be a very large and heavy paperweight come that date.

To make the transistion a little easier the US goverment is offering a coupon program, worth $40 per coupon (two max per household), to offset the cost of a converter box.  You best hurry though... there are only 22.25 million coupons available in the first phase, followed by 11.25 million in the second phase!

So if you have an older TV knocking about your house, you may want to check this out.  I am hoping it will improve the TV quality on mine.  I figure the digital reception should be good, so the local analogue conversion should end up with a decent picture!