SyndeoBlog

This post documents my current opinion about the front end of Google Mail, both its positive and negative aspects. I used it for two days after we switched from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps. My head was spinning so much that I had to switch back to Outlook 2007.

My biggest gripes (If Google adds these features then I will reconsider and possibly switch back.):

• No highlighting of messages ONLY sent to me. I need this because in our collaborative environment most of my emails are sent to the whole team. I have to be able to quickly identify if a message is sent only to me so that I can respond accordingly.
• Categorization (aka Filtering) is still very basic compared to Outlook Rules.
• Only one signature
• No signature on Replies
• No Preview pane
• The biggest gripe by far: It took Google 8 (yes, that is eight!) days to respond to my first support request (Postini was withholding valid emails for 3 hours before they were delivered)!!!

Stuff I still have to get used to:

• Ads everywhere (this will probably never change and I have to remind myself that this is what makes Google Apps so affordable)
• Screen layout not really customizable (apart from adding a logo and changing the background). The benefit is that you are forced to keep it simple.
• Email conversations are grouped together, which can make it easy to follow a topic, but it is also clutters the screen layout.

Things I like:

• Runs in a browser (obviously) on any machine or platform. But then again, so does Outlook Web Access.
• Google Mail makes it easy to eliminate the use of folders, which I never liked and haven’t done for a long time anyway. Unfortunately Outlook makes it very easy to create and manage folders, but when you have hundreds of them it gets unwieldy. I normally recommend using Filters (in Google Mail) or Rules (in Outlook) to categorize items.
• Last but not least: The price. In fact, that is probably the most important aspect. If Exchange was not so darned expensive (unless you are a non-profit) I think Microsoft would not have so much to worry about.

Personally I do not get a big productivity boost from Google’s legendary Search algorithms either. Not that it is any worse than Outlook Instant Search, it is just that I expected more. I guess I am spoiled with Outlook 2007 Instant Search running on a Dell Latitude E4300 with a Core 2 Duo P9600 Processor and Windows 7 and Solid State Drives. My Instant Searches are super fast and the Indexing process does not consume a lot of resources, something older machines have a problem with (I generally recommend shutting off Windows Search if you have XP or an older, slower machine).

Even though Sharepoint data is stored in and managed by SQL Server, creating relationships between two lists is not very easy. But it can be done, even without coding, as long as you keep it to a simple Parent-Child, one-to-many relationship.

I found an excellent post by Mark Rackley that describes the process in detail using Sharepoint Designer 2007 and if you follow the videos carefully it takes about 10 minutes to set this up. You have to get used to the quirkiness of Sharepoint Designer, though. Clicking and editing webparts can be a challenge sometimes, that is why it is recommended to keep both Design and Code view open at all times so that you can jump back and forth. Rackley’s Youtube video’s demonstrate this quite well.

I haven’t found any posts on creating more complex relationships, I am assuming you would have to code to do this, which I am trying to avoid. Perhaps Sharepoint 2010 will change this.

Microsoft OneNote is my tool of choice when it comes to capturing my thoughts in digital format. For years I ran around with a European sized A5 notepad, jotting everything down that came to my mind. About five years ago, though, I decided to go “paperless”, I switched to OneNote and never looked back.

One of the nice features was “Print to OneNote”, which allowed me to capture pages from other applications in OneNote. So, for example, I collect all of my online purchase receipts in OneNote using this feature rather than printing them out and wasting paper.

So, I was quite disappointed when it turned out that this “Print to OneNote” feature does not work on my new Windows 7 64 bit machine, because it is a 32 bit driver. Fortunately, though, there is a workaround. Not as elegant as the original driver, but it works. You use the “Microsoft XPS Document Writer” to print to a folder called “XPS Print to OneNote Drop Folder” which is automatically placed on your Desktop. This triggers the driver to convert the .xps file to OneNote.

Here is the download.

Ideally Microsoft would publish a 64 bit driver, but I am not going to hold my breath.

I finally had some time to configure my web browser according to my needs which is something I have been wanting to do for a long time now. My browser of choice is Firefox, mainly because of its customizability. But because of this flexibility I also had to spend a considerable amount of time setting it up the way I wanted it. Here is what I use:

1. Installed Greasemonkey to run a customized script that refreshes my browser every 59 minutes on our Filemaker based Intranet to avoid the session from expiring (if the page is not refreshed every 60 minutes the session expires).
2. Installed Xmarks, Bookmark and password synchronization tool between multiple browsers and machines.
3. Replaced my Firefox address field with the Google search field, which works like Chrome. See here for details on how to do this.
4. Moved my bookmarks toolbar onto the Navigation Toolbar. This is a bit tricky. First, you select View->Toolbars->Bookmarks Toolbar. Then you right click on the Bookmarks toolbar and select Customize… which will allow you to drag the “Bookmarks Toolbar Items” icon up to the Navigation Toolbar. Now you can close the Bookmarks Toolbar by de-selecting View->Toolbars->Bookmarks Toolbar (thanks, Chris Mercurio, for this tip!).
5. Installed IETab to manage sites that require IE (essentially banking, OWA and Microsoft sites).
6. Uninstalled my Google Toolbar as it is no longer needed.
7. I also added the Firefox Search field to the right of the Google search field I created in Step 3. above. I use this to run searches against specific Search Engines (for example SpanishDict.com for my Spanish homework).

Here is my perfect Toolbar

I still use three different browsers, though,  Firefox, IE and Chrome, mainly because I need to log into mutliple sites with multiple identities (such as Facebook with our Syndeo Technologies account and with my personal account). The easiest way to do this is to use a different browser for each identity. Perhaps I will find a solution for this in the future.

Microsoft’s new “Google-Killer”, Bing, has been launched.
What a dumb name. And, I love the mountains, but does the Start page have to be filled with them? That consumes unnecessary bandwidth and it reminds me of that horrible green field default Wallpaper in Windows XP.
I am going to give it a try for a few weeks, to see how it compares. I have made it my Firefox home page. Stay tuned…

Well, that hammer has fallen: After 4 months of struggling with Microsoft Data Protection Manager 2007 at one of our Client sites we decided to ditch it today.

The product came highly recommended from other IT Professionals and peer discussion groups such as Sunbelt Software’s popular MS Windows NT System Admin Issues forum (lyris@lyris.sunbeltsoftware.com). After extensive research I decided we would give it a try, also because the non-profit pricing was very attractive (this particular client is non-profit).

After spending many years with Veritas and now Symantec Backup Exec I was caught by surprise by the totally different approach to backup of DPM 2007. Microsoft’s assumption is that every IT person wants to “Set it and forget it” when it comes to backup, and to be honest, they are absolutely right. Nothing can be more frustrating than monitoring backups. It is a very time consuming task.

But “set it and forget it” is just not Reality in the backup world, especially when you are dealing with SCSI tape drives (side note: whoever invented SCSI tape drives should be shot). We struggled with basic issues for months:

• Tapes formatted by foreign systems need to erased using a special tool called mytape1.exe only available on request from Microsoft Support.
• You cannot partition tape library systems.
• We had to throttle network traffic to avoid the DPM Agents from crashing constantly.
• I underestimated the importance of dedicating a server to DPM with enough disk space for Disk to Disk backups.
• Documentation needs to be worked on. We found out a lot of things through time consuming trial and error and Google research.

So we downloaded Symantec Backup Exec 12.5 at 4pm today and by 5.30pm we had all agents installed, the system fully patched, backup jobs set up and our first full backup job was running. Beat that!

I wish Microsoft the best of luck in getting this product right, but they still have a lot of work to do if they want to make DPM attractive for the SMB market. If you can afford a beefy server dedicated to backups with a dedicated backup network then you should seriously consider DPM 2007, though.

I had given up on my Blackberry Storm a while ago. My main gripes were its sluggishness responding to commands and the difficult to use on-screen keyboard. I was convinced that the keyboard problem was largely due to the fact that my fingertips are worn from climbing and bouldering and as a result of this the touch screen was unresponsive. I even wrote a scathing review on cnet.com awarding the Storm a meager one star (Review title: This Device is not for Climbers or Guitarists).

I was very close to finding out how far I can throw a Blackberry Storm.

Eventually these two issues got so bad I decided to take the device in to the local Verizon store and get it replaced. I had a valid complaint: The left side of the screen was unusable. Even non-climbers could not type messages. So I got the device replaced and I decided I will give the Storm a second chance. After all, I had reason to believe that a lot of my problems were “user error”: The Storm replaced a Motorola Q, which is Windows Mobile based with a totally different user interface (buggy and horrible if I may say so). I had to assume that a lot of my problems were also because I was just not used to the Blackberry interface and I really didn’t have a lot of time to get used to it.

The second time around I did my research and made sure everything was configured properly:

1. I configured e-mail to use Outlook Web Access. Previously I used the Desktop Redirector installed on an old laptop at home.
2. Configured Internet Browser instead of Blackberry browser and disabled Javascript to improve performance (see: http://www.geekberry.net/howto-guide-on-shortcuts-and-setting-up-the-blackberry-browser-on-a-curve-83xx/).
3. Decided to use SureType more often instead of the landscape mode keyboard (switching from portrait to landscape mode is slow and buggy still). Unless I type technical stuff it actually works quite well.
4. Installed the Cellularld (www.cellularld.com) app to make cheap phone calls.
5. Uninstalled Verizon “Junkware”, the stuff you get for “free” but then have to pay a subscription to use (Music service, GPS location service, etc).
6. Moved icons on the Home screen to put the most popular ones at the top (E-mail, SMS, Contacts, Calendar, Camera).

Verdict so far: I am now on my second day with the device fully configured to my needs and so far so good. I still have some gripes, though:

• Blackberry App World is eons behind the iTunes App Store. The reviews on the site indicate that the apps were rushed out the door and still need a lot of work.
• The device is still sluggish to respond to commands.
• The user interface learning curve is steep. For me this is no longer an issue because I have been using the Storm for a few months now. Also users of other Blackberry devices will not have a problem, but beware if you are new to the Blackberry user interface.

So I would give it 3 stars out of 5 now. Let’s hope Blackberry will continue to iron out the kinks.

I noticed that my machine was responding sluggishly this morning, so I used the Vista Resource Monitor to determine what was eating up bandwidth. It turns out that an application called DNA.exe was the culprit. A quick Google search revealed that this nasty bugger was a tool called “BitTorrent Delivery Network Accelerator” which supposedly speeds up viewing of rich media.

BitTorrent was recently installed on my machine, but I did not ask for this DNA “feature”, and I am always sceptical towards software in the “accelerator” category. So I uninstalled DNA and since then performance has returned to normal.

I constantly ask myself why software developers believe that it is OK to install “free” stuff with their download packages. And Bittorrent is definately not alone on this: Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, you name it, they all do it.

We all know why software developershave adopted this practice. After all they have to make money somehow from allowing us to use their free software. But there are alternatives. You can find some good ideas here, for example:http://barnson.org/node/1573

My advice: If you must install that cool tool make sure you read through the ingredients on the side of the packaging, or in more realistic terms, research the product before you install it and see what others say about it.

Microsoft has announced a monster patch day for next week, including a number of critical ones:

http://cwflyris.computerworld.com/t/4759655/382789/182156/0/

Due to the large volume of e-mail I receive on a daily basis I am obsessed with technologies that can help me organize the hundreds of messages I receive. I even wrote a VBA Script a while back in attempt to take control of the situation, and in fact I was able to reduce my weekly E-mail Organization ritual performed every Sunday from hours down to half an hour. But even that seems to me as a waste of time. There has to be a better way.

Enter: Xobni. This technology promises to solve the e-mail organization problem once and for all. The product is still in beta and you can only get the download through invite only, but the Press is raving. And even Bill Gates says its the “next generation in social networking”. How is that for an endorsement?

For Exchange users I wonder if Xobni will outperform Outlook 2007 Instant Search, though. I recently switched from Google Desktop to Instant Search on my laptop and the results are remarkable. Not only did Google Desktop slow my system down, relevant search results were often lost in a Sea of irrelevant messages. Instant Search does a much better job in filtering, sorting and in general finding the information I am looking for.

It is good to see that vendors are finally taking the age old problem of e-mail organization seriously. Now if only someone woud come up with a personal e-mail archiving system similar to corporate solutions such as GFI Mailarchiver then we can finally say Goodbye to that ugly thing called the PST file!