bruceb news

I am happy to announce that Microsoft formally unveiled Microsoft Online Services today.

I am a Microsoft partner authorized to sell and support Microsoft Online Services. I expect to set up many of my clients with Exchange Online for their mail. If you’re interested, please call me or drop me a note! I do not need to be in your geographic area to assist you with this.

This is the first big step by Microsoft to deliver online services directly to customers, part of its effort to redefine the entire company and move some of your data to the online cloud. […] continued

“Windows Azure” is a terrible name but you need to be aware of it anyway. Windows Azure is a breathtakingly ambitious platform outlined by Microsoft at last week’s Professional Developer Conference, another attempt by Microsoft to position itself to profit from a paradigm shift that will be just as important as the move to the Internet in the 90s.

Yesterday I used word processing as an easy example to imagine what it would be like if you had universal access to your files with the ability to open and edit them from any computer. Of course, it’s just as easy to imagine having easy access from anywhere to your Excel spreadsheets and Powerpoint presentations, with the programs running in a browser if you don’t have a copy installed on the computer nearby. […] continued

The Outlook team at Microsoft plans to publish a series of tips in their blog about interesting ways they use Outlook. Today’s item highlights a way to display any range of dates in the Outlook calendar, even unconnected dates.

Click a day in the date picker (the little calendar in the upper left or upper right), then hold CTRL down and click additional dates. Each one will be added to the calendar display. You can display the range from Wednesday to Tuesday, for example, instead of being limited by the Sunday-Saturday view in the normal “WEEK” display; or you can choose just Thursdays and see your next month’s worth of Thursdays lined up next to each other. […] continued

Apple’s software for Windows has been causing problems on more and more of my clients’ computers. I’ve been wrestling with bluescreens caused by iTunes, file extensions hijacked by Quicktime, and now I’m suspicious that an uninvited service has been causing problems in Outlook.

An iTunes installation includes far more than a music library that syncs to your iPod. There are multiple services and kernel mode drivers and program addins, with very little of it included in any disclosure or presented with any options. Apple also installs its “software update” framework, which it has used to install additional unrelated software without adequate disclosure, notably when it used the update service to install its insecure Safari web browser a few months ago. […] continued

Here’s a tip about Microsoft Outlook that I discovered by accident.

A common problem – you’d like to send an email to a friend with a number of photos attached. If you send the photos straight from the camera, the files are too large. Typical photos from a digital camera are 1.5-2.5Mb each, too big for an email attachment. Attach two or three or more and your message is likely not to be delivered, blocked by filters for oversized mail on your company mail server or your ISP’s outgoing mail server or the recipient’s incoming mail server or mail program.

There are many workarounds to resize the image for easy sharing. […] continued

Here’s a tip for getting around in Outlook: it’s possible to switch between mail, contacts, and calendar using hotkeys on the keyboard instead of reaching for the mouse to click the navigation pane. Who knew?

Don’t overlook an even better Outlook tip from a few months ago – opening multiple Outlook windows simultaneously.

ActiveSync is the technology from Microsoft that connects a mobile device to Exchange Server. For businesses running Small Business Server, it is ActiveSync that makes a Windows Mobile-based device so compelling – over the air syncing of Outlook mail, calendar & contacts.

Apple licensed ActiveSync for the new generation of iPhone, making it more appealing for businesses.

Blackberry devices don’t run ActiveSync and cannot connect to an Exchange Server directly. That’s why I’ve written frequently about the difficulty of setting up a Blackberry in offices running Small Business Server.

This web site announces a third party plugin for Blackberry devices that uses ActiveSync to sync with Exchange Servers, claiming it will be available this month. […] continued

Windows Search 4 was released last month as an upgrade to Windows Search 3.01 (Windows XP) and the built-in search capability in Windows Vista. It is an important upgrade for every Windows user; it will be pushed through the Windows Update system soon. Here’s more information about Windows Search 4.

For the first time, Windows Search 4 can be installed on servers running Windows Server 2003 or Windows Home Server. This gives businesses an important new tool for finding information but there is one new trick to learn.

Many offices with Small Business Server have almost all important business files in a shared folder on the server, which is mapped to a drive letter and is universally referred to by its letter – “The file is stored on the N: drive.” Normal people in small businesses don’t have to be aware that the file is really in something like \sbsserverCompany. […] continued

Two weeks ago, Microsoft announced new services that might drastically change the email technology used by small businesses. Let me give you some background, then give you some information about Microsoft Online Services – a way for a small business to have its Outlook folders stored online by Microsoft.

Companies running Exchange Server for Outlook reap tremendous benefits. For example:

• The same Outlook folders can be displayed on multiple computers at multiple locations. You can use your Outlook folders seamlessly from a desktop computer at the office, a desktop computer at home, and a notebook computer on the road, and Outlook is always up to date at all locations.

[…] continued

Microsoft Exchange and Outlook dominate the market for corporate email. Small businesses running Exchange Server use Outlook almost exclusively. Until recently, even individuals and businesses without a server would use Outlook with their POP3 mail accounts.

But in the last couple of years, almost everyone has started to chafe at a singular disadvantage of an individual copy of Outlook: it can’t be used easily anywhere except by sitting at the computer where it’s installed.

We want to read our mail from any computer, anywhere. We want to use more than one computer – a desktop in the office, another one at home, or perhaps a notebook for the road – and we want our email on all of them. […] continued