Microsoft Teams for Mac Versions

It bothers me a bit that there's no version history I can find for Microsoft Teams for Mac so I thought I'd try to keep a running list. Candidly I'm not sure if this helps anyone, but if it helps you for some reason, please post it in the comments.

• 1.3.00.33671 (downloaded: Feb 3, 2021 - not sure when it became available)
• 1.3.00.28778 (downloaded: Dec 9, 2020 - not sure when it became available)
• 1.3.00.26266 (date checked: Dec 3, 2020 - though I believe I've had this version for some time)
• 1.4.00.8872 (date checked: May 7, 2021 - not sure when it became available)
• 1.4.00.11161 (date checked: May 20, 2021 - not sure when it became available)

Microsoft Surface Accessories by Model Number

Microsoft's website is once again driving me a bit nuts due to lack of model numbers on store, info and support pages. As such I'm attempting to document model numbers for various Microsoft Surface accessories here. If you spot something that's incorrect or if you have any additions, please let me know in the comments.

I hope this goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. The following is a best-efforts list - this means:

• This is NOT a buying guide
• This is NOT a review
• This is NOT a recommendation
• I do NOT warrant the accuracy of this list
• I am NOT responsible for any loss or damage whatsoever resulting from your use of the information provided here

Adapters
1553 - Mini DisplayPort to HDMI AV Adapter (diagonal plug)
1554 - Mini DisplayPort to VGA Adapter
1628 - Wireless Display Adapter
1819 - Mini DisplayPort to HDMI AV Adapter (square plug)
1821 - USB 3.0 Gigabit Ethernet Adapter

Power
(More detail here... https://dancharblog.wordpress.com/2016/12/10/surface-book-pro-3-pro-4-and-docking-station-power-supplies/ )
1625 - 36W Surface Pro 3/4
1627 - 48W Surface Pro 3 Docking Station
1749 - 90W Surface Dock
1800 - 44W Surface Pro (2017)

Keyboards
1515 - Touch Cover (Surface RT, Surface 2, Surface Pro, Surface Pro 2)
1535 - Type Cover (Surface RT, Surface 2, Surface Pro, Surface Pro 2)
???? - Power Cover
???? - Touch Cover 2 (Surface RT, Surface 2, Surface Pro, Surface Pro 2)
???? - Type Cover 2 (Surface RT, Surface 2, Surface Pro, Surface Pro 2 )
???? - Surface Pro 3 Type Cover
???? - Surface 3 Type Cover
???? - Type Cover for Surface Pro 4
???? - Surface Pro 4 Type Cover with Fingerprint ID
???? - Special Edition NFL Type Cover (Surface Pro 4)
1725 - Surface Pro Type Cover (2017)
???? - Surface Pro Signature Type Cover (2017)

Dial
???? - Surface Dial

Docks
1617 - Docking station for Surface Pro and Surface Pro 2
1664 - Docking station for Surface Pro 3
???? - Docking station for Surface 3
1661 - Surface Dock

Microsoft Band 2

[Update: October 20, 2016]
Currently my band is on Build Version 2.0.5301.0
Latest version number on the update history page is 2.0.5202.0
Interestingly, also the Band app for Windows 10 (UWP) is currently 2.3.21004.0
Latest version number on the update history page is 2.3.20914.0
Realizing the band doesn't likely have a future...

--
[Update: March 25, 2016]
And the update history page was updated - the timing is uncanny!

--
[Update: March 23, 2016]
Currently my band is on Build Version 2.0.4313.0
Latest version number on the update history page is 2.0.4215.0
Interestingly, also the Band Sync App for Windows is currently 1.3.20307.2
Latest version number on the update history page is 1.3.20213.1
No issues I'm noticing but this seems to be a pattern...

--
[Update: March 4, 2016]
I hardly believe that anything happened in response to my blog post but coincidentally Microsoft updated that "update history" page I mentioned here in the last 22 hours. The "Latest version number" reflected for Microsoft Band 2 firmware is now 2.0.4215.0 which corresponds with what I see on my Band 2. In addition, a description has been added. In case @microsoftband is reading this, thanks for updating!

--
February 2016 was a bit of an interesting time for my Microsoft Band 2. I feel I should specify that this isn't a "review" or a critique of the band, just some observations.

Near the beginning of the month, I started having battery issues, meaning:

Until February 2016, I would plug in my band to my computer to charge around 10a and put it back on after it was finished charging before lunch. I'd then go about the rest of my day, track my sleep, use the stopwatch, rarely use any exercise functionality, make consistent use of the "watch" display, receive text and phone notifications but not much else. The battery lasted reliably so that the Band 2 never lost power/shut off between charges.

In February 2016 I started having the battery die during the night. I even started charging in the afternoon and still had the battery die overnight. This was a problem as I had to start setting a 2nd alarm to wake me up in the morning. This behavior persisted for a few weeks and I started contemplating taking my Band 2 into the Microsoft store to get them to replace it (thinking I must have a defective battery). Then Microsoft started pushing new firmware during the month - and this is why I'm writing a blog post.

My Microsoft Band 2 is currently (as of this writing, March 3, 2016) on Build Version 2.0.4215.0 26 R. This in itself isn't very interesting. What's interesting is that the "Latest version number" according to the "Microsoft Band and Health app update history" page, is 2.0.4117.0, with an "Update release date" of February 1, 2016.

So, maybe the update page is just trailing or someone forgot? It's more interesting than that. On February 19, 2016, I noticed my band was on Build Version 2.0.4212.0, and tweeted as much - no response from @microsoft (didn't expect one) or @microsoftband (sort of expected one). If I remember correctly, there was a firmware update between 4117 and 4212 as well, though I didn't bother to check on my Band 2 at the time.

On February 26, 2016 I tweeted @microsoftband directly, asking "is there a blog or twitter account that mentions firmware updates for band? the update-history page isn't updated much". An aside -  @microsoftband never seems to mention firmware or software updates.

@microsoftband responded, "Hi Josh, our updates site is handy and we also share information on our blog: http://cic.ms/DeGIys"

So I followed their link to the blog, which looks like it's updated more often than the "update history" page. That said, the blog doesn't mention versions but does mention "updates" in some of the posts. The latest post (as of this writing, March 3, 2016) is from February 18, 2016 and mentions an update - I assume this may be related to firmware 4212 but also may be related to a similarly-timed Microsoft Health app update.

Google searches reveal next to nothing, though searching on windowscentral.com forums I found that at least one person suggested that at least one of these updates has to do with API/developer updates.

Either way, I'd appreciated it (guessing you would too if you've made it this far through this post) if Microsoft was a little more clear & prompt on updates to the Band 2. A shining example of someone at Microsoft who's really delivered on communication is @GabeAul. Maybe there's someone who can try to shed that kind of light on the Microsoft Band firmware/software programs.

Lastly, I should point out that at some point in these firmware updates, the battery life started getting more reasonable again on my Band 2 so I'm thinking something was wrong in 4117 that was subsequently fixed - which is why I got curious in the first place. I realize I haven't accomplished a lot with this blog post though maybe this will serve as a record of some of the versions of Band 2 firmware for those curious. If I find out/learn anything more on this topic, I'll definitely share it.

To be clear, I like my Band 2.

A return to drip

A recent unfortunate incident at the coffee shop close to my office prompted me to stop going for my morning americano (it wasn't great, but it wasn't bad) and return to using my drip brewer at home.

I hadn't made coffee in a while. I have to admit that when I ground some (good, fresh) beans, added water and hit the button, what came out wasn't very good at all.

To put this in perspective, I was pretty sure this wasn't my equipment. I have an electric burr grinder from Bodum - it's not super expensive but it's not cheap either. By all accounts, I have a pretty fantastic drip brewer insofar as those are concerned. I even have pretty good water (though, candidly I don't filter it).

So I investigated and it turns out there were a few things I got right (good fresh beans, medium grind), and something I got very wrong - the amounts of my ingredients, namely beans and water.

As it turns out, one of the recommended (and simple) ways to measure these two important ingredients is by weight. A simple digital kitchen scale that can measure down to tenths of a gram is appropriate here.

I like to take my coffee to work in an insulated tumbler (btw, while they wear out after a while, I like the Starbucks tumblers more than any other I've found) that has a capacity of 16oz. In order to make ~16oz of coffee in the morning here's what I measure out:

• 20g of coffee beans (before I grind them)
• 500g of water (before I pour it into the drip brewer)

Throw the beans into your burr grinder (don't use a blade grinder if at all possible, there are a number of articles others have published about that) using a medium grind setting. Throw the coffee grinds into a paper filter in your drip brewer (fold the seams before you put the paper filter in there - I like to fold each seem towards the opposite side). Throw in the water and hit the button to brew. That's it.

After this small change of measuring my coffee beans and my water before I brew, I've been getting a consistent great cup of coffee day after day for many weeks. Of course I'm buying a lot more coffee beans, but spending a lot less at coffee shops.

I hope this little change (it takes 2 extra minutes in the morning in my experience) makes a little, but important, part of your day better. Let me know of questions, and if you're more advanced than I am at brewing a great cup of coffee, feel free to leave expert tips for anyone else that stumbles across this post - I'd love to learn more as well.

Windows Phone 7 Updates

I really enjoy my Windows Phone 7 device and I've been tracking on Windows Phone 7 very closely since November 2010. As such I'm posting Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 Updates status link here for those of you in the US who are patiently waiting for Copy & Paste like I am:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsphone/en-us/features/update-schedule-usa.aspx

HP Slate 500

I spent last week with an HP Slate 500 Windows 7 tablet. I don't recommend purchasing the device but that's a topic for another time. This post is about something HP calls "system recovery." Here's a little background:

HP's business support site says to use "system recovery to restore the computer to original operating condition," and further goes on to define system recovery as formatting the windows partition of the hard disk and re-installing Windows, the applicable drivers and software for the machine.

Now the fun part. The HP Slate 500 comes with two DVD's for restore purposes, one is Windows 7 Professional 32-bit and the other is the drivers and software disk to make all the extra bits like the camera and touch-screen work correctly. Neither of these disks have an automated system recovery procedure though I've seen on the various HP message boards that installing off the Windows DVD and then installing all the software from the auto-run procedure on the drivers and software DVD accomplishes a similar feat.

That said, I had trouble getting my external USB-connected DVD drive to boot the Windows DVD that came with the Slate (as it turns out HP support tells me that the DVD I have is bad) so I looked around a little more and heard about a USB thumb drive system recovery option from HP (you may have seen information posted elsewhere as well).

I spent about 3 hours on the phone with HP business support and here's the important piece of information that makes this long post worth the time you've spent reading it...

HP support can overnight you, for free (assuming you own or are supporting the HP Slate 500 and have the relevant ownership information) a USB thumb drive that does an automated system recovery.

The HP support rep can find the part number 638737-001 in their internal "CD order tool", specifically:

Item Number - 638737-001 KIT

Item Description - Windows 7 Pro 32-Bit Slate 500 USB STICK

When you receive the USB thumb drive you have to do the following:

1) Fully shut down the HP Slate 500

2) Plug in the HP Slate 500 with the AC adapter

3) Plug in the USB thumb drive to the USB port at the top of the device (it won't look like it fits all the way in but it does)

4) Boot the device and hit the "-" hard key at the top of the device to go to the boot menu

5) Select the boot device options by scrolling with the "+" and "-" hard keys at the top of the device and confirming your selection using the "home" hard key at the top of the device

6) Select the USB thumb drive from the boot devices using the same keys as in step 5

7) Next through the HP system recovery UI, selecting the options you want (Note that Tab functionality is accomplished with the "Keyboard button" hard key on the left side of the device)

8) When the device is ready to reboot, leave it plugged into AC power, remove the USB thumb drive and use the "home" hard key to tell the device to reboot

After that, all the rest is automated and after waiting a bit for the system recovery to complete you'll be asked for a new Windows user name like you were (or maybe someone else was if you're doing support for someone) when you started using the device the first time.

Ford SYNC

A few notes from my experience with syncmyride.com live chat:

-SYNC Gen1 - V3.2 is for 2011 models (as opposed to SYNC Gen1 - V3.1, currently the latest version for 2010 models).

-You can Master Reset SYNC. I don't have a touchscreen so for those of you that have SYNC without a touchscreen, here's the relevant instructions from syncmyride.com live chat:

"To perform a Master Reset on SYNC: Press the PHONE button to access the PHONE MENU, then follow this path: SYSTEM SETTINGS > ADVANCED > MASTER RESET > OK to confirm. The Mater Reset will begin and will complete in a few seconds. A Master Reset will remove all corrupt files and bugs that were causing the issue, as well as all paired phones and media players (your updates will not be affected). They will have to be paired again. Note: if you can not find a specific option, then select RETURN, press OK, and look again."

Windows 2003 Password Policy

Just a quick point on Password Policy in Windows 2003 domains:

In Windows 2003 there's only one Default Domain Policy and it's applied at the Domain level. This has the Password Policy data in it and Password Policy can only be set in this one place and effects all users of the domain. You actually have to go in and edit the Default Domain Policy itself (which effects all users) rather than trying to apply a separate policy at a lower (eg: OU) level because the lower one will never take effect for Password Policy stuff. Incidentally many administrators feel your pain so Microsoft took it upon themselves to allow different Password Policies at an OU level in Windows 2008 native domains/forests.

GroupBoard Workspace 2007

So if you've dealt with this one it seems that there are two scenarios.

(1) It works with no problems.
(2) It doesn't seem to work no matter what you do.

You can imagine that I'm not writing about scenario (1). I've opened this post because I need to collect information about GroupBoard Workspace 2007 in one place so I'll be adding to this post as I find out more...

The error I get this morning when I try to create a new site with GroupBoard Workspace as the template is:

Feature '636287a7-7f62-4a6e-9fcc-081f4672cbf8' is not installed in this farm, and can not be added to this scope.

Nice. So what I've found thus far is to retract the solution and attempt to redeploy. When I attempt to retractsolution I get the error:

A deployment or retraction is already under way for the solution "gbw.wsp", and only one deployment or retraction at a time is supported.

So now I figure I'll run an iisreset and go from there...

Windows Mobile 6 Ringtones

Quick Tip here. If you want to add your own music file as a Ring tone on your Windows Mobile 6 phone, connect the phone to your computer and browse to "My Windows Mobile-Based Device -> Application Data -> Sounds" and drop it in there. After that, on your device go to "Start -> Settings -> Sounds & Notifications -> Notifications" and select the "Ring tone:" that you just copied to your device from the drop-down list.

Managed Default Folders in Exchange 2007

Question:
How do I automatically purge items older than 30 days in the Inbox, Sent Items, and Deleted Items folders in Exchange 2007?

Answer:
There are actually four steps to set this up. They can all be done from PowerShell, which is awesome, but they can also be done through the Exchange Management Console. I'll cover both methods.

Step 1 - New Managed Content Settings
In Exchange Management Console, select Microsoft Exchange -> Organization Configuration -> Mailbox -> Managed Default Folders. From here, select each folder you wish to create Managed Content Settings (read: retention/journaling policies) and click "New Managed Content Settings..." from the Actions menu on the right.

Step 2 - New Managed Folder Mailbox Policy
Now skip over to the Managed Folder Mailbox Policies tab. Click "New Managed Folder Mailbox Policy" and Add the folders you want to group together. This grouping is important because you can only apply one "Policy" to a given user.

In practice this means if I want my retention settings for Inbox and Sent Items that I set up in Step 1 to apply to USER1, I need to add both of those folders to one Policy. If I want the retention settings for Sent Items and Deleted Items to apply to USER2 and USER3, I need to add both of those folders to another Policy.

Step 3 - Messaging Records Management - Recipient Configuration
Still on Exchange Management Console, drill down to Microsoft Exchange -> Recipient Configuration -> Mailbox and double-click on a user. Go to the Mailbox Settings tab on the user Properties window and double click on "Messaging Records Managment". Here you need to select a Managed folder mailbox policy (you created this in Step 2) for this user.

Here's where I reccomend using PowerShell if you have more than a few users to assign this policy to. PowerShell script example coming tomorrow.

Step 4 - Messaging Records Management - Server Configuration
Finally, drill down to Microsoft Exchange -> Server Configuration -> Mailbox and double-click on a Mailbox Server. Go to the Messaging Records Management tab and create a Custom Schedule when to apply the Policy.

Think of this as a scheduled task with a "Stop the task if it runs for X hour(s) X minute(s)." The only difference is that this scheduled task picks up where it left off when it stopped. So, if I schedule it to run at 12AM for one hour each night and it doesn't finish processing through all the mailboxes it is assigned to, it will continue at 12AM on Monday.

One final note, you should do this during light usage hours because this can be intensive on your Exchange Servers and Outlook (think synchronization, especially on the initail run).

That's pretty much it. For more details and PowerShell commands from Microsoft, take a look here (remember it's technet so Internet Exporer or IE emulation will give you a "better" view):
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb123548(EXCHG.80).aspx

Good luck!

CubeTree

We're about to do an internal soft launch of CubeTree at my office. I'm excited but busy. More to come on the MPS fun from last week and more to come about CubeTree shortly.

And then there was MPS...

So, eight months later...

I've had an exciting eight months. I have successfully made the transition from education to the private sector and things move at a pretty fast pace here. It's fairly obvious that I haven't had any time to blog for a long time. Now I'm hoping that I'll have at least a moment here and there to blog so this seems as good a time as any to start again. Having said all that...

I'm taking a class for the next four days on MPS, that is the Microsoft Provisioning System leveraged by Microsoft's Hosted Messaging and Collaboration product. Never heard of it? That's not surprising. If you're interested at all, as far as I can tell there are only a handful of people that actively use this product and we all post on this relatively dead message board:

http://forums.asp.net/default.aspx?ForumGroupID=29

Specifically, I troll around the Microsoft Solution for Hosted Exchange board there. Anyway, useful bits of information and my general insights soon to come...

My own RBL

Today I was trying to figure out how to block spammers' IPs from using my smtp servers. Regardless of your point of view on IP blocking I figure this was an interesting exercise so I'm posting what I found and how I went about finding it.

Exchange 2007 has this functionality where it can check an RBL (I'm not going to spell it out because people can't agree on what it means) before sending a message. The idea is that Exchange knows where the email is coming from (the IP that connected to Exchange's SMTP server) and can basically pass that by a list before accepting the message to see if the IP looks like a "known spammer". This gets all-kinds-of-fun because people who run mail servers for a living have all had an experience where one of their servers is flagged as a "known spammer" and they have to jump through hoops to get their server's IP off someone's list. The lists usually update frequently (if you're not reported to a list within 24 hours your IP usually drops off the list) so a lot of people (and a lot of people's anti-spam programs/boxes) rely on these to cut down on spam.

I thought, as someone who is rather against this practice having had servers I have run be listed on an RBL before, I would rather only block the IPs *I* choose to block and for the amount of time *I* choose to block them. I figured I would search for a program (Microsoft usually supplies me with these type of things) that would set up a list for me that my mail servers could query and I would call it a day. I was surprised when I found vague links to Microsoft Antigen, Exchange itself and Microsoft Forefront. Antigen, as far as I can tell has been absorbed into Forefront in its current iteration and neither Exchange nor Forefront are what I would call "easy" to setup and configure correctly, at least not as easy as I was imagining this project. So I googled my problem and found a nifty little linux app named rbldns. I would've just slapped that on a linux test box but none were handy so I read about it instead. Turns out this program is just a lightweight DNS server...interesting.

So after much thought and a few more specific google searches I figured out what an RBL list really is! What is an RBL list really? It's a DNS server, but it's a very specifically formatted DNS zone that gets you what you want. Here's the meat and potatoes to get you going:

There's an address for the DNS server of the RBL list, that's just the DNS name of your, well, DNS server.

There's a DNS suffix. This is the zone you create your RBL records in. So if my domain were josh.com, hosting www.josh.com, etc. I would create a zone on my DNS server and call it "rbl.josh.com", this is the DNS suffix.

You may see where I'm going with this by now. Your email server queries your RBL server (read: DNS) before accepting a message to see whether the IP connecting to your mail server is there. If it is, the mail server says, sorry, with an error message that's normally configurable but should basically say, "you're a known spammer, if you disagree, contact me here".

Here's the trick. Say I know that 10.20.0.5 is a known spammer and I want to put them on my "RBL", I put it in quotes here because it's more just a "BL" that I manually update, but that's neither here nor there. I go to my dns server to my "rbl.josh.com" zone from before and create the A record (forward lookup) "5.0.20.10.rbl.josh.com" and point it at "127.0.0.1". This is because when a mail server queries an RBL list for an IP, it queries for the IP octets in reverse order followed by the DNS suffix. If it finds that in the RBL list pointing to 127.0.0.1 (or really anything non-routable in theory), then it drops messages from that sender. If it doesn't, it allows the sender to continue the session with the smtp server and send their message on its merry way.

Anyway, this probably isn't so exciting for most folks but I found it interesting and if you need to block specific IPs, this is a really cheap way to do it. It's also really efficient if you have multiple servers that all should have the same block list and you don't trust the big RBL names. If you need me to clarify anything please post a response and I'll do my best to get back to you. I hope this helps those of you in the situation I was in. Oh yeah, one more thing, if you want to block, say the whole class C in the above example, just create the record for "*.0.20.10.rbl.josh.com" and point it to "127.0.0.1". Good luck and happy list-keeping!

New Look

So I'm done with MCSE: Messaging exams and I figured it was time for a cleaner looking blog. I hope everyone likes the changes. I'll be posting about migrating my file servers from DFS to DFSr in the next few weeks. Stay tuned...

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

Setting up SharePoint Server 2007 with remote-SQL isn't exactly easy. I found a web page that has a step-by-step here. You should begin this process from a fresh install of Windows Server as SharePoint tends to take over IIS. Make sure you run the install of SharePoint when logged-in as your SharePoint Administrative account. Double-check everything as you do it. It's really difficult to uninstall and re-install this product.

One last thing before we start, if you're installing SharePoint on one box and have no intention of using remote SQL or a server farm (multiple servers), just go ahead and run through the install like you would with a Microsoft Word, that is, "next, next next," it basically sets itself up.

Below are my comments that you should reference while going through the directions on the page linked above.

Prerequisites:
-Don't worry about Microsoft Windows Workflow Foundation Runtime, I think this was just for the Beta.

Post-Install:
-Create the Shared Services Provider (5) - Change "Description" to "SharePoint Services" and "Port" to "4000"
-Create the Shared Services Provider (9) - Change "Application pool name" to "SharePoint Services"
-You probably don't need to start the Windows SharePoint Services Web Application service as it's probably already started if it needs to be.

Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) 3.0

I know it's been almost two months, no excuses, let's get down to business with WSUS 3, the free tool to manage Microsoft Updates to Windows machines on a network. WSUS 3 requires MS SQL 2005 in one flavor or another and I wanted to use the full version (not Express, which is free here) to simplify backups since I use a dedicated SQL server. As such I had to make the upgrade from SQL 2000 to 2005 on that box, more about that in a later blog entry.

Any System Administrator that has to maintain more than 2 Windows servers or workstations who is not using WSUS, this blog entry is for you -- I'm about to make your life easier. If you're using WSUS 2.0 already, upgrading shouldn't be too hard, but that's not the subject of this blog entry -- take a look here *before* you upgrade. One more warning, it's going to be significantly harder to do this if you don't have an Active Directory infrastructure in place.

The install for this product is pretty easy (those who used WSUS 2.0 know what I mean). Make sure you install the prerequisites on the download page (IIS, .NET) and hold onto the Microsoft Report Viewer installer for your administrative workstation. After that you double-click the WSUS installer executable and almost the entire process is self-explanatory. I'll go through the post-install details that I didn't think were completely obvious rather than giving a step by step of "Next>", "Next>" etc. The only two installation details I can think of here are 1) make sure to use the WSUS dedicated site and 2) if you use a standalone sql server and are using the default instance to host your databases, you only need to put in the name of the sql server (as opposed to sql server\instance name).

You *need* to do a few things after running the installer. First you need to either issue or obtain a SSL certificate for the IIS server you are hosting WSUS on. Then you need to attach that SSL certificate to the two Web Sites that WSUS uses. That's right, it uses both the "Default Web Site" and the "WSUS Administration" website. Next, require SSL in the following places (*NOT* at the Web Sites themselves, just the sub directories):
-Default Website
-Selfupdate
-ClientWebService
-WSUS Administration
-ApiRemoting30
-ClientWebService
-DssAuthWebService
-ServerSyncWebService
-SimpleAuthWebService
The above settings (which are more or less the SSL directories defined by Microsoft) imply that you need to open ports 8530, 8531 and 443 (all TCP - it's web traffic) on your firewall to any machines that you want to update with WSUS.

Mom Corner - #2

Here's a few quick Google Toolbar tips:

Question:
How do I disable search suggestions in Google Toolbar?

Answer:
1. On the right-hand side of the Google Toolbar, there's a "Settings" button. Click it and select "Options..." from the drop-down context menu.
2. In the "Toolbar Options" window, on the "Features" tab, click on the "Search Box Settings..." button.
3. In the "Search Box Settings" window, uncheck the three boxes that begin with "Suggest" and click "OK".
4. Click "OK" again to close the "Toolbar Options" window.


Question:
How do I disable AutoFill in Google Toolbar?

Answer:
1. On the right-hand side of the Google Toolbar, there's a "Settings" button. Click it and select "Options..." from the drop-down context menu.
2. In the "Toolbar Options" window on the "Features" tab, uncheck "AutoFill".
3. Click "OK" to close the "Toolbar Options" window.

These two points are interesting to me because I actually like search suggestions and autofill. Here are the reasons I can think of to disable them:
Insofar as search suggestions, if you are in an environment where others can see your computer screen, you may not want partial words (or whole words, for that matter) brining up your favorites (bookmarks) or suggested google searches. If I had to search for a serial number that started with two "X"'s for example. I know, that's a weak argument and I like search suggestions far too much to disable them based on that. The other other thing I can think of is if, like my mom, you don't like small "windows" appearing over your browser's displayed web page.
As far as autofill, this is simple for me. If you are using a public computer or a generic (more than one person knows it) login on your own computer, disable it. I can't stress that enough. Would you leave the information you type into an internet form printed out and taped next to the monitor? On the other hand, I have my own personal computer to which only I login with an account and password that no one else knows. In this case, when I got to pay my cable bill every month, they ask for some information and it's nice not to have to look it up or type it in each time. With autofill, I just click on the information I want in the box and it's filled-in for me.

One more thing -- Internet Explorer and Firefox both have built-in autofill functionality and by default Firefox has built-in search suggestions for the Google search box in the Navigation Toolbar. Not that I'm saying you *shouldn't* use Google toolbar, just that I get these two specific pieces of functionality without it when I use Firefox (which I'm saying you *should use*, with or without Google Toolbar).

Mom Corner - #1

Not to be confused with the similarly titled Ops Mgr, I've decided to post a few questions from my mom. Mom Corner will be end-user questions that I think anyone will be able to accomplish in a few quick steps, i.e. the posts labeled like this one are *not* geared toward IT pros.

Question:
How do I disable Hibernation on my Windows XP computer?

Answer:
1. Click Start -> Run...
2. Type "powercfg.cpl"
3. In the "Power Options Properties" window, select the "Hibernate" folder-tab
4. Uncheck the box labeled "Enable hibernation" and click "OK"

And in case you're interested in further reading, here's a good article describing Power Management in Windows XP

Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 Tip

Can't see your network card inside Virtual Server 2005 R2?

Today we ran into an issue where Virtual Server 2005 R2 wasn't seeing the correct NIC (there are 2) on a specific box. As it turns out, in the properties for any given NIC in Windows where Virtaul Server 2005 R2 is installed there is a check box for:

Virtual Machine Network Services

This happens to be what determines whether Virtual Server 2005 R2 can see a NIC or not.