Innovative Technology Weblog

On the 10th of January Microsoft released a new beta build of there Real Time Communications Platform.
The name changed to Office Communications Server 2007. So maybe this will be the new name.

I just starting installing it and there are some nice new features.

New Features in This Release:
Beta 3 includes many improvements over Beta 2 and introduces additions to the Microsoft Unified Communications infrastructure. With the release of Beta 3, you will have access to the following components:

· Introducing Voice!  Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 Beta 3 now offers Enterprise Voice, the IP telephony component of the Unified Communications solution.

· Expanded Presence Offerings!  More granular presence options debut in Beta 3, along with the transitioning of presence from Active to Inactive to Away. 

· Communicator Web Access (CWA)!  CWA offers a consistent user experience across desktops (Windows, Solaris, Mac) and web browsers (IE, FireFox, Safari). XML based (AJAX) APIs: availability of Web UI controls to quickly integrate presence and IM capabilities into an existing web portal.

It will not be a public released Beta but here on BUIT.org you will find all the information about all these new features.

see ya,

Jeroen Jansen

Now that we are talking about BitLocker I just want to share something Steve Riley “showed” at Tech-ED IT-Forum 2006

Well this a bit of a little secret because it not supported by Microsoft but it works nicely. If you want to use BitLocker on another partition then your partition where the OS resides on you can do this. So no GUI what so ever just plane old school command line kicking stuff. There is no GUI supporting this feature.

To run it:

1. Open an elevated command prompt
2. Change to %WINDIR%\System32
3. Enter cscript manage-bde.wsf

For the curious, “bde” expands to “BitLocker drive encryption.”

With no parameters, the output is:

Description:
    Configures BitLocker Drive Encryption on disk volumes.

Parameter List:
    -status     Provides information about BitLocker-capable volumes.
    -on         Encrypts the volume and turns BitLocker protection on.
    -off        Decrypts the volume and turns BitLocker protection off.
    -pause      Pauses encryption or decryption.
    -resume     Resumes encryption or decryption.
    -lock       Prevents access to BitLocker-encrypted data.
    -unlock     Allows access to BitLocker-encrypted data.
    -autounlock Manages automatic unlocking of data volumes.
    -protectors Manages protection methods for the encryption key.
    -tpm        Configures the computer’s Trusted Platform Module (TPM).
    -ForceRecovery or -fr
                Forces a BitLocker-protected OS to recover on restarts.
    -ComputerName or -cn
                Runs on another computer. Examples: “ComputerX”, “127.0.0.1″
    -? or /?    Displays brief help. Example: “-ParameterSet -?”
    -Help or -h Displays complete help. Example: “-ParameterSet -h”

Examples:
    manage-bde -status
    manage-bde -on C: -RecoveryPassword -RecoveryKey F:\
    manage-bde -unlock E: -RecoveryKey F:\84E151C1…7A62067A512.bek

So thanks Steve R. for this information.

See ya,

Jeroen

Ok, I know that this for the most of you not so interesting but for me as an Dutch man its interesting to see that Groove is in my native language.

What was called workspaces are now called “werkruimte” in Dutch. So I see that Microsoft has changed al the terms that we were used to.

But i’m happy to see that the troubleshooting functionality are still in English.  So a home relay device is still a home relay device and not a “thuis doorstuur apparaat”(see below)

see ya,

Jeroen

It’s a rainy night here in Amersfoort. Watching footy on the telly, but something tells me to open my Inbox. And there it is.Time: 20:42, Sender: KC Lemson Subject: Exchange 2007 RTM has Arrived!

 I call out to my wife. I’m getting the kids out of bed. These are the moments they are going to tell there children and grand children about. The landing on the moon, The fall of the Berlin Wall and now its Exchange 2007 RTM is here. My daughter(3 years old) starts to cry out, we are going to mis you daddy, because she knows daddy has to work a lot , daddy has to work in the middle of the night to migrate mailboxes. But I tell here that this is not the case with Exchange 2007 and that migrating mailboxes is only moving mailboxes now. So she gets back into bed and has a smile on here face from ear to ear. I open up my BeerTender (c).

I started to call my friends and co-workers. They are just as excited as I am. We make a appointment to meet at the nearest bar to have an RTM drink fest.
My good friend Kevin is just as excited as me and tells me that he won’t sleep this night and will wait for the RTM on the TAP site. Stefan is wondering if there is an Management Pack for MOM 2005. We tell him there is and he buys the next round of drinks because he is so excited about this news. The night is getting longer and there finaly is Rob, our BDD/RDX hero. He is just here for the drinks.

The end of this story is that we are getting ready to go live with this RTM. We got our servers spinning with Windows Server 2003 R2, ADAM for the edge, ASP.NET 2.0 installed. Is it already monday?? I want to start.

UPDATE:

Kevin just got home and is downloading

See ya,

Jeroen

Well today i got an email from the RTC TAP with an url to a LiveMeeting site for testing purposes.

Its looks nice and easy to use.

I love the audio and video with this versions. Its works like great. Its really good in sync. Also publishing youre apps or desktop works great.

Hopefully it will get public soon.

see ya

Jeroen