Eileen Brown's WebLog

Voice spam: How to stop it

I really love this idea.  We've been working on a tool to stop voice spam.  You know, those annoying calls offering to give you a better deal on your cell phone, a free kitchen, a credit card that pays you just for using the card.  I have my own ways of dealing with them.

Them: "we can save you money off your bill"

Me: "how much is my bill then?"

Them: "Well we can save you money"

Me: "You can only save me money if you know how much my bill is, and as my bill is paid for by my company, then you can't really save me anything"

(Or I make up some sort of totally outrageous lie like this one)

Them: "How would you like to have a lovely family photo portrait done?"

Me: "I have no family"

Them: "Well what about your partner"

Me: "My partner left me.  I live alone"

Them: "Pets?"

Me: I have no pets.  Only chickens and I don't really think they would enjoy having their photo taken" (I'll swear he put the phone down laughing at this one...)

So anyway - back to the point. Microsoft research have developed a way to automatically screen voice calls according to this bit of news I read today.  It (V-Priorities) works on three levels.  One to examine the rhythm, rate of syllables, pitch, and length of pauses -- of a caller's voice. The second level, recognises words and phrases to indicate the nature of a call. The third level analyses the length of the call.

Microsoft Research do a heck of amazing things don't they?  But if this is implemented I won't have half as much fun when i answer the phone...

Easy blogging with Windows Live Writer

Mike has been bugging me to blog about this, and because I didn't do it immediately, he's blogged about the beta version of Live writer is now available for you to download.  I've been using Live writer to do these posts for a while now.  So why do I like it so much?

My day job which involves drinking a heck of a lot of coffee with various people around the business, means that I leave a lot of posts unfinished as I rush around campus on my way to another  "coffee and catch up" meeting.  So Live Writer works for me due to draft mode.  I just click on the "Save Draft" button, and the various bits of blog posts that I start and never finish, get saved as a list of Drafts on the right hand side of the interface reminding me that when ever I get some inspiration, or am fired up from yet another caffeine fueled meeting, then I can finish off the post and zip it straight off to my blog.   It supports categories too, recognised my style sheets, the font style and size I like to use all the time and saved me a lot of work stripping HTML formatting out of posts before publishing.

Mike Torres has got some nice screenshots over on his blog, and there are lots and lots of reviews over on the Live Writer blog too.

So Mike - stop being so impatient!.   It's in my Drafts folder.  Guess I'd better hit the publish button now...

Office webcasts for September

Microsoft Office System Webcast: A First Look at Office Project 2007 (Level 100)
Wednesday, September 06, 2006 - 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM Pacific Time
Keith Wilson, Senior Consultant, Project Management Practice Inc.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032305752&Culture=en-US

Microsoft Office System Webcast: Top 10 Tips to Save Time in Office Outlook 2003 (Level 200)
Tuesday, September 12, 2006 - 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Pacific Time
Andy Reed, Senior Training Specialist, Total Project Management
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032305685&Culture=en-US

Microsoft Office System Webcast: A First Look at Office Visio 2007 (Level 100)
Tuesday, September 12, 2006 - 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM Pacific Time
Brett Newman, Managing Director, Visimation Inc.
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032305754&Culture=en-US

Microsoft Office System Webcast: Top 10 Tips to Save Time in Excel 2003 (Level 100)
Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Pacific Time
Andy Reed, Senior Training Specialist, Total Project Management
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032305687&Culture=en-US

Microsoft Office System Webcast: Tips and Tricks for the 2007 Office System: Great Document Formatting Made Simple with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint (Level 200)
Thursday, September 21, 2006 - 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Pacific Time
Stephanie Krieger, Author and Document Production Expert, Arouet.net
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032306024&Culture=en-US

Microsoft Office System Webcast: A First Look at Office Outlook 2007 (Level 100)
Tuesday, September 26, 2006 - 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Pacific Time
Andy Reed, Senior Training Specialist, Total Project Management
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032305689&Culture=en-US

Microsoft Office System Webcast: Advanced Tips and Tricks for the 2007 Office System: Customize Your Word, Excel, and PowerPoint Documents in No Time (Level 300)
Thursday, September 28, 2006 - 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Pacific Time
Stephanie Krieger, Author and Document Production Expert, Arouet.net
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032306026&Culture=en-US

Momentum Webcast: Improving Productivity with the 2007 Office System, Exchange Server 2007, and Windows Vista (Level 100)
Tuesday, September 26, 2006 - 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Pacific Time
Jeff Lowe, Solution Specialist, Microsoft Corporation
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032303529&Culture=en-US

Momentum Webcast: Growing Your Business Using Microsoft Office as a Development Platform (Level 100)
Tuesday, September 26, 2006 - 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM Pacific Time
Mike Hernandez, Product Manager, Visual Studio Tools for Office, Microsoft Corporation
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032305508&Culture=en-US

Sharepoint webcasts for September

MOM & SMS Webcasts for September

Microsoft Webcast: Reduce Costs and Optimize Server Management Operations Using Proactive Monitoring with Microsoft Operations Manager 2005 (Level 200)
Wednesday, September 06, 2006 - 11:00 AM - 12:30 PM Pacific Time
Mackal Smith, Senior Architect - Operations Center of Excellence, Microsoft Corporation
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032305671&Culture=en-US

Messaging Webcasts for September

TechNet Webcast: Regulatory Compliance, Archiving, and Electronic Discovery with Exchange Server 2007 (Level 200)
Tuesday, September 12, 2006 - 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM Pacific Time
David Sengupta, Exchange MVP, Product Manager, Quest Software
Martin Tuip, Exchange MVP, Product Manager, Quest Software
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032304394&Culture=en-US

TechNet Webcast: Best Practices for Managing Exchange Server 2007 and SharePoint Environments (Level 200)
Thursday, September 14, 2006 - 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM Pacific Time
David Sengupta, Exchange MVP, Product Manager, Quest Software
Kathleen Lundgren, Product Manager, Quest Software
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032302737&Culture=en-US

TechNet Webcast: How Microsoft IT Defends Against Spam, Viruses, and E-Mail Attacks (Level 300)
Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - 9:30 AM - 10:30 AM Pacific Time
Omesh S Desai, Microsoft IT Systems Engineer, Microsoft Corporation
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=71192

TechNet Webcast: Managing and Migrating to Exchange Server 2007 (Level 200)
Tuesday, September 19, 2006 - 11:30 AM - 12:30 PM Pacific Time
David Sengupta, Exchange MVP, Product Manager, Quest Software
Ron Robbins, Product Manager, Quest Software
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032304392&Culture=en-US

Microsoft Office System Webcast: Top 10 Tips to Save Time in Office Outlook 2003 (Level 200)
Tuesday, September 12, 2006 - 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Pacific Time
Andy Reed, Senior Training Specialist, Total Project Management
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032305685&Culture=en-US

Microsoft Office System Webcast: A First Look at Office Outlook 2007 (Level 100)
Tuesday, September 26, 2006 - 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM Pacific Time
Andy Reed, Senior Training Specialist, Total Project Management
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032305689&Culture=en-US

Momentum Webcast: Best Practices for Exchange Server 2003 Consolidation (Level 100)
Thursday, September 14, 2006 - 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM Pacific Time
Hollis Beall, Solutions Development Manager, HP
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032305396&Culture=en-US

Talking Microsoft

James has been talking to people at Microsoft in the UK and has started with one of the newest hires to join the UK team - the General Manager, Gordon Frazer.  We hosted this video, and have created a new blog - a "Talking Microsoft" blog. 

We're just trying to bring the real people who work here in front of the camera, and get them to chat for about 15 minutes about general stuff on camera.  We don't have the program managers, or the product teams or the really senior guys in the UK, so we dont have the luxury of access that we have at Channel 9.  But we have real people here too, with real lives and a real part to play.  So we're going to chat to them and find out what part they play in supporting the business of the largest subsidiary outside Redmoond...

Have a look at the video here... Well done James.  A great start to your second career :-)

Boy Geeks and Girl Geeks

I've just bullied my team in going to the next Girly Geek dinner in London (Each boy needs to be invited by a girl).  We get so much out of these events (without actually having to work at all).  There are so many interesting women there from all walks of life who want to communicate and network with others.  It's amazing to see the spread of skills and knowledge out there.  So, if you're around on the 29th August, come along and either James, SteveL, SteveC, Melville or I will buy you a beer...

Adding Speech to Office Comunications Server

I know that Speech Server isn't directly in my technical area so to speak, although I've mentioned it from time to time,  but with the inclusion of Speech Server within Exchange Unified Messaging, and now with the announcement  in the news that we're adding Speech Server technology to our Office Communications Server offering and discontinuing Speech Server as a stand alone product, gives you some idea about where we're heading with our Unified Communications strategy.

The ability to bridge IM and phone calls with speech recognition, spoken commands and the presence engine opens up a whole new world.  And with the ability for devices to have the correct calls routed to them via an intelligent agent that knows that when you're away from your desk, then any IM or call should come through the the device you're carrying.  Even Vista will be intelligent enough to cope with speech recognition in 8 different languages. 

There's some amazing stuff coming along, each with its own unique challenges for me.  Not only have I got to get my head around all of this new (for me) technology, but I've also got to build a brand new environment with this integrated communications environment which is still a bit of a mystery for me.  I'll just need to persuade my boss to let me buy lots of nice shiny new hardware to play with.

Well...I can dream can't I?...   

Failed to register Service Principal Name for exchangeRFR; error code c10379bc.

Aaron was searching around for the Exchange RFR error code c10379bc and found my blog entry about Disaster recovery.  He had sone interesting challenges, and after working through them all worked out that re-applying Service Pack 2 for Exchange  fixed everything.  I've reproduced his mail with all of the error messages - just in case you ever get a similar chain of events...

After applying 1 MS update (Windows Server 2003 Hotfix KB921883) and rebooting the server , I got the following 4 errors in the application log.  Shutdown took a LONG time, about 14 minutes according to the system log.  Typical reboot time (time between event log shutdown and event log startup) is usually 50 to 70 seconds.

---------- ERROR 1 ----------
Event Type: Error
Event Source: MSExchangeSA
Event Category: General
Event ID: 9317
Date:  8/10/2006
Time:  12:27:09 AM
User:  N/A
Computer: EXCHANGE
Description:
Failed to register Service Principal Name for exchangeRFR; error code was c10379bc.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

---------- ERROR 2 ----------
Event Type: Error
Event Source: MSExchangeSA
Event Category: General
Event ID: 9317
Date:  8/10/2006
Time:  12:27:09 AM
User:  N/A
Computer: EXCHANGE
Description:
Failed to register Service Principal Name for exchangeMDB; error code was c10379bc.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

---------- ERROR 3 ----------
Event Type: Error
Event Source: MSExchangeSA
Event Category: General
Event ID: 1005
Date:  8/10/2006
Time:  12:27:09 AM
User:  N/A
Computer: EXCHANGE
Description:
Unexpected error No mapping between account names and security IDs was done. Facility: Win32 ID no: c0070534 Microsoft Exchange System Attendant  occurred.

For more information, click http://www.microsoft.com/contentredirect.asp.

---------- ERROR 4 ----------
Event Type: Error
Event Source: MSExchangeSA
Event Category: General
Event ID: 9152
Date:  8/10/2006
Time:  12:27:14 AM
User:  N/A
Computer: EXCHANGE
Description:
Microsoft Exchange System Attendant reported an error '0xc1034a70' in its DS Monitoring thread.

For more information, click http://www.microsoft.com/contentredirect.asp.

After reading numerous web pages advocating "restore from backup", I came across a page suggesting a re-install of Exchange SP2.   I re-installed Exchange SP2, rebooted, and everything worked again.  I rebooted again, just to make sure everything was still OK.  It was, so I backed up the entire system.

Thanks Aaron for a really comprehensive mail and painstaking troubleshooting for me!

System Center Virtual Machine Manager Beta 1

I noticed this today - from the demo's that I've seen, it's certainly worth evaluating.  Tony also has lots of other useful information over on his blog as does David

The System Center Virtual Machine Manager public beta announced by Bill Gates at WinHEC last Spring is now ready for download. The Virtual Machine Manager is an essential element of Microsoft’s broad virtualization strategy and brings essential management capabilities to the virtual data center.

Learn more about the product and sign-up for the beta here:

Exchange 2007 ignite training

I've just finished delivering 2 days of Exchange 2007 training to a group of Microsoft Certified Trainers from across Europe.  It's called Exchange Ignite training (Ignite the interest / ignite the spark / ignition).  There were 18 MCT's in the room (2 women thanks to Anne and Ilse), with 2 Microsoftee's (Jane and me).  You know Jane, you need to get a blog, share that massive amount of deep technical knowledge you have with the rest of the world, and increase the number of Technical women blogging on Exchange beyond KC and myself :-)  Mind you 20% female techies in a room was impressive (and certainly unusual!)

Well here are the answers to the questions we couldn't answer during the course. Don't forget that the technical documentation is still in the process of being written, as is some of the Exchange help, as is some of the product.  So, as promised, here are the answers and links where possible...

Q.What is the number of Transport Rules supported in Exchange 2007 ?
A.The maximum number of hub transport rules supported in Exchange 2007 is 1000

Q.A hub server will look to make a direct SMTP connection to a remote hub server role for delivery before considering the costing of the AD Site Topology. Is there a way to force the message to always take a specific route which may not be the most direct ip route due to the “cost  in $ value” of using the most direct route of the IP.
A.You can find a little more info about the question here.  This topic (set-adsite) describes the process for setting the hub site. Note that the hub site must exist along the lowest cost route between the source and destination in order to stop at the hub site. Also, in that section of the help file, you will find information about setting an Exchange-specific cost to an Active Directory IP Site Link (set-adsite) to customize your Exchange routing. The deeper technical information on transport and routing is in process and is scheduled for RTM delivery.

System Center Operations Manager Beta 2

...I really like the new name for MOM v3.  System Center sits well with me.  it describes what the product is supposed to do, look after your system. Microsoft Operations Manager was a little too vague for my liking, because IT operations can include all of your process stuff, MOF and ITIL, and not concern your Systems at all.  Yes System Center is a much better name for it, and covers a range of products coming under the System Center umberella. 

Well Beta 2 is out now, if you'd like to download it. Check out Ian's blog on OpsMan architecture by the way.  It's much slicker than MOM 2005, which is a great improvement over MOM 2003.  And with the release of System Center configuration Manager (a.k.a. SMS v4) beta  and Virtual Machine manager beta (check out Arlindo's blog for info) , there are a lot of tools coming to help you make sense of your organisation, and get things under control...

Smartphones more popular than PDA's

I'm completely in agreement with this report.  I've got a pocket PC and also a smartphone, and I do 70% of my work on the smartphone after testing both of them.  We've had to make a choice for one of the new 3G devices which are on the way soon, and most of us have chosen the candy bar style.

My smartphone is smaller, lighter, and fits in my pocket.  However, my PDA is easier to do work on, blog, and respond (and triage) my mails.

Now when I get my Origami...

Microsoft at work

I've been receiving this newsletter for some time now.  Sometimes it's got some cracking tips that I've never heard of before.  Some a little bizarre, some that I add to my repertoire.  Like these:

Powerpoint:
Navigate slideshows with ease. 
   Go to a particular slide by pressing the Number + Enter. Return to the first slide by pressing 1 + Enter (or press both mouse buttons for 2 seconds).

Working with the pointer during a slide show. 
   Hide the pointer and slide show toolbar immediately by pressing Ctrl+H. Hide them in 15 seconds by pressing Ctrl+U.
Word
Viewing documents in Word. 
   To see two parts of a document simultaneously, drag the spilt bar at the top of the scroll bar

Find just the right word. 
   Click on a word and hit Shift-F7 to automatically look up a synonym, antonym, or alternative choice, Using a thesaurus or other available tools.
Excel
Organise large, multi-sheet workbooks. 
   Right click on a worksheet tab (like "Sheet1") to rename the tab and colour-code it; you can even copy And move worksheets.

Rapidly view the information you need. 
   Zoom in and out of a spreadsheet by holding down the Ctrl key while rotating the wheel button on your mouse
Outlook
Save time with Outlook shortcuts. 
   Ctrl+1,2,3,4,5 will display Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Tasks, and Notes.

Add your own follow-up flags in Outlook. 
   Click the Message Flag button and then type the text you want in the Flag to box. 

...Worth subscribing to.