Exchange Mailbox Server Role Requirements Calculator

I was perusing “The Exchange Team Blog” and I came across v16.5 of the Exchange 2010 Mailbox Server Role Requirements Calculator

After you have determined the design you would like to implement, you can follow the steps in the Exchange 2010 Mailbox Server Role Design Example article within the Exchange 2010 Online Help to calculate your solution’s CPU, memory, and storage requirements, or you can leverage the Exchange 2010 Mailbox Server Role Requirements Calculator.

There is a giant article that explains the whole thing, check it out here. You can go straight to the downloads section as well, the calculator will be the first in the list.

Exchange Server 2010 Service Pack 2

Last week Exchange 2010 service pack 2 was announced, below are some of the new features.

Outlook Web App (OWA) Mini: A browse-only version of OWA designed for low bandwidth and resolution devices. Based on the existing Exchange 2010 SP1 OWA infrastructure, this feature provides a simple text based interface to navigate the user’s mailbox and access to the global address list from a plurality of mobile devices.

Cross-Site Silent Redirection for Outlook Web App: With Service Pack 2, you will have the ability to enable silent redirection when CAS must redirect an OWA request to CAS infrastructure located in another Active Directory site.  Silent redirection can also provide a single sign-on experience when Forms-Based Authentication is used.

Hybrid Configuration Wizard: Organizations can choose to deploy a hybrid scenario where some mailboxes are on-premises and some are in Exchange Online with Microsoft Office 365. Hybrid deployments may be needed for migrations taking place over weeks, months or indefinite timeframes. This wizard helps simplify the configuration of Exchange sharing features, like: calendar and free/busy sharing, secure mailflow, mailbox moves, as well as online archive.

Address Book Policies: Allows organizations to segment their address books into smaller scoped subsets of users providing a more refined user experience than the previous manual configuration approach. We also blogged about this new feature recently in GAL Segmentation, Exchange Server 2010 and Address Book Policies.
Customer Requested Fixes: All fixes contained within update rollups released prior to Service Pack 2 will also be contained within SP2. Details of our regular Exchange 2010 release rhythm can be found in Exchange 2010 Servicing.

Sadly enough, I have some clients who do not even have Exchange Server 2010 SP1 installed, why? because Microsoft decided to make it one of the most uncooperative upgrades in existence. Prerequisites at every turn, its quite ridiculous… does anyone out there know if you can go straight to SP2? I guess I will test an upgrade in my VMware sandbox and let you all know.

GoFlex Satellite (500GB/WiFi/USB 3.0)

Now here is something interesting… a HDD that is WiFi connected, any web capable device can use it, if the media is native to the device, or you can use apps to convert media.

“This shiny, streamlined black box is about the size of a couple of decks of cards. Plug it into a Mac or PC via USB 3.0 (or 2.0), fill it up with music, movies and photos, and then enjoy them on any Wi-Fi device — if the files are compatible. Inside this attractive package is a rechargeable battery that powers the drive for five hours, a Wi-Fi access point and 500GB of hard drive storage space.”

via Mashable Article

Personally I wouldn’t go near that device, not because it probably the neatest thing created in a while, but because it just wouldn’t be worth 200$ to me, 500gb is a little on the small side, once they start releasing larger capacities with the same if not better functionality then I might bite, until then, those who do purchase the device, enjoy!

-NS

Free VMware Training!

If you purchase VMware vSphere Essentials or Essentials Plus during the promotional period (March 8th – Sept 15th 2011) you will receive tokens to take free online courses.

For a limited time, buy VMware vSphere Essentials or Essentials Plus and get vSphere Fundamentals for SMBs online training free! If you’re new to virtualization, vSphere Fundamentals is designed to help you learn the vSphere Architecture, guide you through the installation, and understand best practices.

You will have till November 15th to redeems the tokens. I believe its only valid for US customers, which sucks for us up here in Canada. Never the less, its interesting enough for me to blog about.

Full Promo details here.

-NS

Laser puts 26Tb/sec through fibre

So cool! Fibre optics might just receive an upgrade in the not so far future!

Researchers have set a new record for the rate of data transfer using a single laser: 26 terabits per second.

That’s crazy, to think that someday data transfer rates will be instataneous from point A to point B.

While the total data rate possible using such schemes is limited only by the number of lasers available, there are costs, says Wolfgang Freude, a co-author of the current paper from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany.

“Already a 100 terabits per second experiment has been demonstrated,” he told BBC News.

“The problem was they didn’t have just one laser, they had something like 370 lasers, which is an incredibly expensive thing. If you can imagine 370 lasers, they fill racks and consume several kilowatts of power.”

Professor Freude and his colleagues have instead worked out how to create comparable data rates using just one laser with exceedingly short pulses.

Within these pulses are a number of discrete colours of light in what is known as a “frequency comb”.

When these pulses are sent into an optical fibre, the different colours can add or subtract, mixing together and creating about 325 different colours in total, each of which can be encoded with its own data stream.

You have to read the full story here though, its quite an interesting read. Last year they attained 10Tb/s, so in one year they more than doubled sustained transfer rates. Amazing stuff.

Firefox 5 Beta Released

Mozilla just released Firefox 5 the other day, they have moved to a quick-release schedule in the hope to bring new features to users and developers sooner.

Mozilla has three main versions of Firefox now: the release version for mainstream users, the beta version with new features under testing, and the most raw, Aurora, a version to introduce those new features. Those three versions correspond to Chrome’s stable, beta, and dev releases. There’s also a nightly Firefox build for those who want to try whatever patches have arrived in the last 24 hours, but it’s most likely to be unstable.
 
The new process means that whatever is done on a particular schedule can ship in the new version–a more calendar-focused process than feature-focused process. One goal of the approach is to reduce the penalty of missing a train, because with a rapid release cycle, another train should come to the station soon.
 

“The shift to a rapid release development cycle delivers cutting edge Firefox features, performance enhancements, security updates and stability improvements to users faster,” Mozilla said in its blog post announcing the Firefox 5 beta. “After five weeks of testing on the Firefox Aurora channel, the next version of Firefox is ready for the beta channel.”
 
Another feature in the new beta is the ability to switch among the various versions of Firefox by clicking “change” in the “About Firefox” dialog box.

I used to use Firefox back when Internet Explorer was lacking, but so far Internet Explorer 9 is awesome, I have no complaints. So as far as i’m concerned, Firefox, keep releasing your browser revisions and I will keep using IE9

-NS

Intel ME or Management Engine

The default ME password is “admin”.

Once Entered it will force you to set a “strong” password

Basically you need to have a capital letter, a number, and a character like !/@/#

Why did i post this? Because my ESXi Host at home has this feature and I was curious. I do not think I will be looking at it again anytime soon.

-NS

iOS 4.3.3 Location Services Fix

Well here is the fix for that “Apple is tracking you” Issue.

I for one don’t really care, maybe I should? Either way, once the jailbreak for this comes out I might update, until then, Apple I guess you know where I am!

Here is “what” is fixed.

Reduces the size of the cache [it's only about a weeks worth of locational data now, as opposed to many months]

No longer backs the cache up to iTunes [Your new backups will no longer contain the consolidated.db file, making it a whole lot harder for a crazy spouse to take it and throw it into a third-party mapping tool to figure out roughly where you were at any given time]

Deletes the cache entirely when Location Services is turned off

Comments? Questions? Here is the download link.

Full Offline Google Applications

Offline you say, yep, Google is looking to add a huge item to their repertoire. A Google spokesperson stated that they have been using offline versions of the software for months.

Google is aiming to strike right at the heart of Microsoft and the Windows stronghold. But they know that one big hold up remains before a browser-based OS can be everywhere: offline access.

Applications like Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Docs will be able to be used in offline mode this summer.

iPad 2 – A super computer in your hands.

Here is a fun little tidbit for you all.

The iPad 2 would rival the Quad Processor Cray 2 Supercomputer which was built in 1985, and get this, it was the size of a washing machine!

Also something of note for those wanting to pick up an iPad 2,  the new processor is 10 times faster than the original iPad. Makes me happy that i usually wait for the next revision of the next biggest thing on the market, USUALLY!

Check out the full story here.