Another sign that Windows 7 is slowly approaching RTM: the language packs have appeared on Windows Update.
Browsing Posts published in May, 2009
Microsoft has released the BizTalk Server Best Practices Analyzer v1.2, which you can use to compare the configuration of your BTS server against – as the name suggests – a set of best practice rules as defined by Microsoft.
After you install BPA 1.2 on your BizTalk server, it can perform a (non-intrusive, read-only) analysis by looking at various system settings and configuration items and suggest areas of change or improvement.
As you may or may not have read on about a gazillion other blogs: the Visual Studio 2010 CTP is now available on MSDN Subscriptions.
If you want play with all the newest stuff (.NET 4.0, WF 4.0, WCF 4.0, Silverlight 3.0), go get it!
David Chappell has produced yet another excellent whitepaper that explains the rationale behind Windows Workflow Foundation very well, in my opinion.
Get it here: http://www.davidchappell.com/TheWorkflowWay–Chappell.pdf
Our company recently switched to Microsoft’s Business Productivity Online Suite, so we now run all of our collaborative services on Microsoft’s cloud.
Like most companies, we’ve got a few iPhone users (myself included) so one of the first things I did after the switch was find out how to sync my iPhone to my BPOS Exchange account.
Here’s how to go about it:
- Connect your iPhone to iTunes and make sure it’s backed up. That way you can always go back if things go wrong.
- After it’s been backed up, disconnect from iTunes and ensure you have a working internet connection via WiFi or 3G
- On the iPhone, go to Settings, then choose “Mail, Contacts, Calendars”
- Choose Add Account
- Choose Exchange
- Enter:
- Email: your complete email address (the address your correspondents would use if they want to send email to you)
- Domain: you can leave this empty
- Username: your BPOS username (this is usually the same as your email address, but it can be different: it depends on how BPOS is set up in your organisation)
- Password: your BPOS password.
- Description: Put any value you want here. I’ve just entered “Spikes”, the name of the company I work for
- Choose Next
- A few seconds later, a field called “Server” will appear
- In Server, enter your BPOS server name. This name will depend on where your BPOS account is geographically located (ask your admin if you’re not sure)
- In North America, use red001.mail.microsoftonline.com
- In Europe, Middle East and Africa, use red002.mail.emea.microsoftonline.com
- In Asia Pacific, use red003.mail.apac.microsoftonline.com
- Choose “Next”. The iPhone will again verify settings.
- Select the things you want to synchronise (normally, all of these would be “ON”)
- Choose “Next”
- Choose “Done”
- Scroll down and select your default email account (if you have more than one)
- Scroll further down and ensure that “Time Zone Support” is set to where you are
That’s it. Your email, agenda and contacts are now pushed to your iPhone through the magic of ActiveSync!
By the way: did I mention we’re a BPOS Partner? We can help your company transition to BPOS too!
Cliff Simpkins has an extensive article about Workflow Foundation v4, and announces a soon-to-be-released preview of both WF and WCF (or “dub-ef” and “dub-cee-ef”) as they are lovingly known in Redmond).
