Multiple Calendars On BlackBerry Handhelds

Blackberry handhelds at least the ones I've seen that operate with a Blackberry Enterprise server and run with on Java platform (4.x), do not and cannot display multiple user's calendars. I'm holding one of the blackberry handhelds in my hand right now that wasn't able to nor could it currently display any calendar but my own (there is a hack method from what BB support told me be it doesn't work 100% right, it is not smooth to update, and they do not support it).




It's a very useful feature to have on a PDA, the ability to view several different shared calendars. I've seen the setup at attorney's offices. The calendars are made up of not a persons own calendar but those of various court calendars. Since many attorneys, at least in my neck of the woods, don't present their cases in just one court or in one location, they often go to several different court houses. Having the calendar for each of the various court houses and having them update automatically through the wireless network ti the PDA, like Verizon, Cingular, Sprint, etc., let's them be more productive and efficient.

I've both seen and setup multiple calendars through the use of public folders on Exchange where each court is a folder of calendar type. One attorney's office had their lawyers on 5 separate calendars. The girls in the office could update their schedules and they would get them almost instantly. This was done with PDA' that had a windows operating system on them.

Another attorney office which I support wanted to do the same but they had already purchased Blackberry handhelds as their PDAs. Well, when asked to setup exchange in their office and a blackberry enterprise server with the goal of setting up multiple calendars, I found out that it can;t be done. So the bottom line is currently blackberry handhelds even with a blackberry enterprise server cannot display multiple calendars on the handhelds. It was stressed by blackberry support that this feature may be added in the future but as of right now, BB Enterprise server version 4.1, it can't be done.


Tags:
calendar,
blackberry,
pda,
exchange

Send As and Send on Behalf of Using Outlook and Exchange 2003

Configure Exchange 2003 / 2000 to allow Send As User or Send on Behalf of
To give a user rights to Send As perform the following steps:

This is a common scenario. There's a manager or other employee like a top sales rep that needs to have others send email on their behalf or for them. Rather than having the person who is going to send the email go to their desktop and compose the email to send, they could send email for the other user right from their own desktop.
The surprise here is that although you may have configured full mailbox access in Exchange settings and the user can open the other users mailbox in Outlook on their desktop, the email sent still bounce back with the message stating the user is not allowed to send.That's because it there is another checkbox that needs to be checked to send for another user in the user security tab.

1. 
   Open Active Directory Users. This doesn't have to be from your Exchange server
   
2. 
   Enable viewing of Advanced Features in AD users and computers by licking View --> Advanced Features
   
3. 
   Find the user that you would like to have other users have rights to allow someone to send email as them (boss / manager)


4. 
   Double-click on the user name or id and select the Security Tab which is Typically top right box
   
5. 
   Add user that needs to "Send As" and grant them "Send As" permission. Permission change can take up to 15 minutes to go into effect.
   
   The user may now select "Sent From" in Outlook and the recipient will not be able to tell the email was not really sent on behalf of someone.
   
   exchange-send-as-send-on-behalf

Remote Support

outlook send as,
send as,
outlook,
exchange

Generic Host Process for Win32 Services Error

Generic Host Process for Win32 Services Error

So many XP systems have automatic updates enabled. So there are many users who have recently received the the Generic Host Process Error. If security update 873333 (MS05-012) was installed rither through automatic updates or through a manual system update, you may experience the message.

A supported hotfix is now available from Microsoft. Please use the link to Microsoft's support site below to download the hotfix. There are several version of the dowload so be careful which one you choose.

KnowledgeBase Article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/894391

Load balancing with Sonicwall TZ170

I've worked with a bunch of different types of firewalls and routers and although Sonicwall is not one of my most favorite products for some applications it does do something right at a fairly reasonable cost. The load balance option on the TZ170 works pretty good and it's easy to configure.

The unit can be configured to load balance in active/active mode, active/passive and active/active (this is my favorite). In active active, you can set the amount of data that passes though each ISP connection using percentage based or even load based. So with these configuration options one can split off data by preference or by bandwidth availability for each connection.

Remote Support

Supporting tech-nol-o-gy. Yep, that's a computer alright. - Powered By Bloglines

Supporting tech-nol-o-gy. Yep, that's a computer alright.

Nevermind about the fact that this bl0gger happens to have my name. Maybe I'll have to have a talk (email) with him/her about that. There could be only ONE!

There are some pretty interesting and cool p0sts on this bl0g. The guy actually posts about equipment that he comes accross while doing his tech support job. The computing equipment varies. Sometime is could be dekstops then servers or networking equipment like Adtran routers which he has a nice post on.

He even has some posts on software, registry hacks and even has some software reviews. I particularly liked the one that compares GFI Faxmaker with Captaris Rightfax. These two software packages are on opposite ends of the cost scale but also on the opposite end of features too.

How do you cost-effectively provide remote support?

How do you cost-effectively provide remote support?

An example how free software can be used to create a remote support software program is described in this poston ittoolbox.com.
It's a nicely detailed description of how to use a free remote control tool to setup a remote support solution that could do the job for you.

Another email trojan sent as attachment.

A new variation of an old theme, the trojan name has changed, the file attachment name has changed, but the delivery is the same old played out method of sending a virus or trojan, as an email attachment - how boring.

The people who create some of the viruses I think a very creative in getting there junk software out to the masses. As much as I don't like what they do and how they do it, in fact I consider it a form of torture for regular computer users, they are very good at it.

The newest version, really just another variation of the same old method of spreading their bad software, was today. A desktop user reported to me that they received an email that looked legitimate but because most of my users have been well trained to expect the unexpected when it comes to email scams, questioned the legitimacy of the email and notified me of it.

The subject contained the following:

Re: Mail server report

Which in appearance looks like most real messages sent from email servers. Very bland with no distinguishable characteristics to let the user know that it's really from their own server.

Then the body:

Our firewall determined the e-mails containing worm copies are being sent from your computer.

Nowadays it happens from many computers, because this is a new virus type (Network Worms).

Using the new bug in the Windows, these viruses infect the computer un-noticed. After the penetrating into the computer the virus harvests all the e-mail addresses and sends the copies of itself to these e-mail addresses

Please install updates for worm elimination and your computer restoring.

Best regards,
Customers support service

Attachment: Update-KB2703-x86

The attachment even looks like a Microsoft file name - similar but not real. To more experienced people most network administrators they would look at this and see that is was bogus as I did. But to an ordinary user or a less experienced admin, this attachment may very well be clicked on.

About the body, well if you heard enough language accents you would realize that this was written by someone with and accent. The most obvious clue that this isn't legitimate is that real updates don;t some through email and I don't know of anyone who would email another person a software update when they know they can be retrieved online very easily from Microsoft's update service.

It does look good though and even if many scanners would catch the virus as the file was unzipped and run, there are those that have outdated software and would get infected. Just as this email was sent from an infected computer. Then the chain continues on.

A simple rule is, don't open zip files from people you don't know...period. My users are aware of this that they don't open a thing and I have less trouble with outbreaks because of this basic training.

Remotely Support Desktops over the Internet

I found a webiste that has a service that allowes you to take control of computer systems over the Internet to provide remote support to end-users. This is not a novell idea or a great discovery but the thing that makes this site and their service speacial is that they don't sneak in additional charges and dont have a complicated billing system for their remote support solution.

Remotely access and control an unlimited number of computers over the Internet using thier remote support software service with one rate. Also, unlike other services that may charge for minutes used or the number of desktops accessed, there's none of that.

Remote Support Software

Remotely connect to and control as may systems as you need to. You could even change the computer you providing remote support from. There's "license" attached to any particular system. Change as you need to. There are even other sites that sell a program that has you networks IP address "burned" into it.

Thier system is dynamic in that if your location that you provide remote support from changes, you just make a simple change in your user page to accomodate for. The software that downloads to the remote computer autmatically "knows" of the change and tries to connect for remote desktop support using the new configuration.

PC Remote Support Software

There a various vendors of pc remote support software that offer static solutions. Ther are even others that provide the tools to allow you to build your own remote control program. What these sites to is create an executable program for you that packs in an IP address that the remote control softwar that downloads to the remote computer uses to connec to. This works fine but what if you IP address changes or you need to provide PC remote support from a location other than the one that the program was created for - this is a problem. Remote PC support software should be as dynamic as the worl that's being supported. Desktops change all the time, networks change all the time. How can a support program not change too.

HP's support is ranked top ten in the world but ...

Evo Drivers Support

If the page above doesn't load for you it's sad. This is supposed to be a support page for an HP Evo desktop. Supposedly the loacation from which a dekstop owner could download drivers and other desktop updates. It's down. It's been down for several days. Support pages come up for other dekstops for for some reason , for days, no one can get updates for evo desktops or towers or any other version of the system.

I've alwys like hp's efforts for providing online desktop support for thier products. I think their one of the best. I think they ven won some award and were in the top ten in the world. But this is the bad side. If for days a desktop owner can't get to a part of their support site that's for thier desktop then what exectly was the award for? Is their a way to cast a vote? Thier should be because although this is not normal for HP it falls into a real bad catagory and in the neighborhood of some real crappy support provided by other vendors which they beat out in the competition that brough them into the yop ten. Boo!.

Supporting tech-nol-o-gy. Yep, that's a computer alright. - Powered By Bloglines

Supporting tech-nol-o-gy. Yep, that's a computer alright. - Powered By Bloglines This blog site I found is kind of interesting enough. It has several good tips on performing some not so common task on desktops, servers and routers. The person who writes on this page definately is from the computer, network, and server support world. He performs a wide range of support tasks and not just narrowed to a specific catagory of support. Some real experiences posted. It's not a bad blogging site. There are even a couple of decent tipes on equipment he's used including a couple that kind of say avoid if possible. He has even posted some good tip on or for online Remote support software for computer remote support. I'm going to be trying out the solution or service recommended by the author.