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Exchange 2007 and 64 bit Domain Controllers

Wednesday 27 February 2008 at 8:11 pm We're laying the groundwork for Exchange 2007 and some interesting stuff is coming out of the woodwork.

We realised that Exchange 2k7 was 64 bit only (there is a 32 bit version which can be used in non-prod environments only) but now theres some debate about requiring 64 bit Domain Controllers!

My colleague came across these links -


The schema master and all the Global Catalog (GC) servers within the forest where Exchange 2007 will be installed must be running Windows Server 2003 SP1 or later. All domains within the forest must have a functional level of Windows 2000 native or higher. Any site that will contain an Exchange server running the Mailbox, Hub Transport, or Client Access server role must contain at least one GC server. If possible, your domain controllers (DCs) should run a 64-bit Windows OS.

You need to have one Global Catalog server core for every eight Exchange 2007 cores; your GC servers must be running a 64-bit Windows OS , and each server must have enough physical memory installed so that it can cache the entire AD database in RAM.


I did some digging and came across an interesting blog post on Microsofts AD environment and where they see their Domain Controller bottlenecks.

Umm . . . interesting stuff but I really start to wonder about Microsoft requiring a serious hardware uplift just to get your messaging system upgraded.

As a Domino fan stuck in an Exchange world I had to compare and contrast with Lotus Domino 8:


Domino 7 delivered improvements in performance with most of the focus around reducing CPU requirements by between 25-50%, In Domino 8, there are a number of further performance and other improvements that can potentially allow you servers run even more efficiently, without hardware upgrades. Here are some of the more visible and valuable improvements.


I wonder when people will push back on Microsoft and require improved efficiency over resource-bloat ?

Vista SP1

Wednesday 27 February 2008 at 7:45 pm I installed Vista SP1 today - it took a couple of hours and three reboots. Awesome.

This is on a quad-core Xeon workstation with 4Gb of RAM.

After the reboot I didn't notice any immediate differences - AnandTech cover whats fixed and performance improvements (if any) in SP1.

After all that it still won't pick up my Creative Zen Plus . . . Sigh. Apparently its a standard MTP with native XP/Vista support so it should 'just work'. It doesn't in Vista 64bit which is a little aggravating - especially after two hours and three reboots :-(

Application Virtualisation + More

Friday 22 February 2008 at 4:24 pm Nifty - Nice guide to application virtualisation. I'd seen the Softgrid demos and it looks like this type of technology has great potential on the desktop.

Interior decorating tips for the space-challenged - Creative Bookshelf Design.

A new free Marathon scenario Eternal. Marathon was a Mac FPS thats been released as an open source engine by Bungie.

All over the interweb, but in case you hadn't already seen this - Recover disk encryption keys from RAM after shutdown. Watch how you can view the contents of a laptop ram after you've actually shut it down.

Nice idea - Get human dialer.

Some wonderful photos here - Thirty photos that inspired me to learn photography.

Someones doing some interesting stuff with Linux & Bluetooth - How to install BlueProximity and more detail about BlueProximity itself.

Rather artful take on the fps genre - Love. Will have to try this on my PC.

Brilliantly pointless monster battles in comic form - Road of Knives. Reminds me of 3rd form text-book doodles.

Problem - small apartment, lots of books ?

Thursday 21 February 2008 at 8:04 pm Best use of a limited amount of space I've ever seen - coolest staircase ever.

Problem solved :-)

Single Serving Sites + More

Tuesday 19 February 2008 at 8:59 pm Sites that serve a single page - Single Serving Sites. Now you can see William Shatner in all his glory or check if the US is at war with Iran or find your IP address or check out this facebook parody.

Nice - Xara Xtreme open source linux vector drawing package. Its descended from the old Acorn RiscOS application and is supposedly the fastest vector drawing app out there in terms of rendering complicated drawings. Its lightweight too.

Cool - excellent dingbat fonts. The blood-spatter ones are brilliant.

Can't remember if I linked to this or not - A closer look at ESA. ESA is Enthusiast System Architecture - a new initiative to help over-clockers and tweakers to get the best performance out of their gear.

Procrastination aide - Chess Problems. Java based chess problems to solve.

If you're a coder its useful to consider all aspects of internationalisation - Does your code pass the Turkey test ?

Mess with peoples Wifi - turn their internet upside down.

Old but still useful - a map of the Linux kernel and all its system calls.

Genius - seconds in Iraq.

Joel Spolsky explains why Microsoft Office file formats are so complicated. For example the Excel 97-2003 file format is a 349 page PDF file.

I stumbled upon TVersity which is one of those media streamy things that will run on your PC and let devices browse and playback shared content (does on the fly transcoding too) on your local network. Not open source unfortunately but it is free.

Ultimate Record Collection for Sale

Tuesday 19 February 2008 at 8:51 pm Even if I had the money I'd have no where to put this stuff and I'd be dead before I'd listened to the collection in its entirety.

Take a look at the eBay auction for The Greatest Music Collection.

Um - start lobbying your local museum or library now ;-)

Science Humour

Tuesday 19 February 2008 at 8:44 pm Richard Feynman rules.

W(hat) W(ould) R(ichard) F(eynman) D(o) ?

The Gordons

Wednesday 13 February 2008 at 4:01 pm A great pair of quotes found in a book on New Zealand music I was flicking through at a record store concerning one of my favourite bands :

"When they played at the same size venue as Motorhead they required four extra PA sound systems. Saying The Gordons were LOUD is like saying the Beatles were a POP GROUP - not so much detonating as devastating!" Everett True, Melody Maker

"The Gordons drop every hint that they know a pop song or two, but refuse to play one...This is a juggernaut of a record. When you put it on not only will your lawn die, your Motorhead albums will shrivel in their sleeves, leaving only a sticky black gel smelling faintly of vodka. (8/10)" David Swift, NME

Pretty amazing praise for an obscure antipodean band.

So heres The Gordons 'Adults & Children' in 1980 and the band they evolved into almost a decade later - Bailter Space with 'X'.

A marked progression and a mellower sound from one to the other but they still retain the awesome wall of sound.

Ubuntu 7.10 on Toshiba Tecra M9

Monday 11 February 2008 at 12:19 pm It just works - you need to install in safe graphics mode and pull down a bunch of NVidia related packages to get Compiz working but other than that its great.

Suspend and Hibernate are a little flakey - they were just as bad under Windows so its no great loss.

I thought Wireless would be a real hassle until I realised I'd switched it off on the little hardware slider on the front - as soon a I switched it on I got the Wireless functionality immediately. Nice.

I had to manually setup PPP from the commandline via pppconfig for my Telecom T3G card - I can't seem to find a way to force PAP authentication from the GnomePPP or Ubuntu dial up panel (I'm sure its possible I just haven't looked hard enough). At least its pretty simple to 'pon' & 'poff' as required.

Best of all VMWare Player works so I can run a current corporate XP build (via a P2V of an idle desktop) too.

I'd still have to say that Linux is still not ready for the average user - theres enough little niggles to mean that unless you know what to look for and where to find it you're probably not going to use it (particularly pissing about with the graphics drivers). Having said that Ubuntu is brilliant - once its up and running anyone could use it as their day to day OS.

Hacking the EEE PC + More

Saturday 09 February 2008 at 08:14 am A friend of mine picked up one of these to show his portfolio to clients - I suspect he won't be pulling his apart in the same way as this Ultimate Asus EEE PC Hack.

I also wonder how many weddings he'll need to shoot to get one of these things - the mother of all telephoto lenses. The detail is amazing.

Awesome Brown Tape Art.

Handy - Unix one liner to show directory listing as a tree structure.

Handier - Regex Cheat Sheet. Actually he's got a bunch of other useful crib-sheets covering other aspects of database and web design too.

Moving back into Infrastructure I've completely forgotten how to tie a tie - this sight offers some video and diagrammatic support for all your favorite tie-knots.

Awesome - watch your favourite Cult Movie Theatre online.

Interesting EEE PC Samba exploit - it gets rooted out of the box. Nasty.

Google Ads

Friday 08 February 2008 at 09:29 am Trying out Google Ads to see if they actually generate any $$$ - so far they're pretty unobtrusive. I almost scrolled straight past them.
 

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