Ted's Blog

Merging Outlook and GMail Contacts

ted — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 20:47:00 GMT

I found this very interesting article on CNet's blog today talking about merging and managing Contacts in GMail and your Exchange mailbox. If you're one of those people (I know I am) who finds themself wishing your GMail contacts were in Outlook and vice-verse, this one's for you!

Exchange 2007: Now Available!

ted — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 00:14:00 GMT

Lanlogic is pleased to announce that we are now offering Exchange 2007 as a service! We've got two new pricing plans as well, $9.95/mailbox/month for 500 MB mailboxes and $13.95/mailbox/month for 1 GB mailboxes. Take a gander at our site for details and more information about our pricing and service.

We're in the process of migrating some of our Exchange 2003 customers over to 2007 right now and are booked through the end of the year for migrations but will be making it available for current users as well in the near future.

You'll also want to keep an eye on our site and this blog as we've got some very exciting new offerings that we're going to be unveiling very, very soon! Stay tuned!

Windows Mobile 7 Delayed Yet Again

ted — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 22:47:00 GMT

Multiple sources are reporting that Windows Mobile 7, which was due for release to developers/manufacturers early 2009, has been delayed yet again. it's now looking like late 2009 before the developers/manufacturers will be able to get their hands on it and take it for a spin. While devices running WM7 aren't due for release until 2010, this will still mean major problems for developers/manufacturers and is going to give Apple's iPhone even more time to increase their footprint in the market and people's pockets/ears as it will probably mean they won't be able to design applications/devices around the new OS.

Lanlogic's New Attachment Manager

ted — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 22:58:00 GMT

Lanlogic, Inc. is proud to announce its new partnership with Proginet Corporation to offer our Hosted Exchange users the Slingshot Attachment Manager Service. We know how hard it is to keep mailbox storage size to a minimum and how difficult it can be to send large files. Slingshot allows you to send large attachments inside and outside of your organization with increased security and convenience.

The Slingshot Attachment Manager software works seamlessly with e-mail systems and allows users to send what they need when they need it. The files are stored on our in-house servers behind our secure firewall and do not leave our server until downloaded by the end user. Because our in-house server is used, the attachment is never left in the senders or recipient’s inbox, taking up space and filling up your mailbox. Slingshot also notifies the original sender when the file is downloaded, so you know exactly when it was received. It also allows multiple files to multiple recipients and the option to download only individual files from the batch sent.

The Slingshot application is seamless and efficient – it works under the covers so users don't even know it's there. They send and receive e-mails using the regular Outlook interface – with Slingshot handling attachments in the background. You'll improve your company's overall productivity and enable users to focus on their business issues – not IT bottlenecks or bulging mailboxes.

Slingshot can also be configured to handle all e-mail attachments in your organization – or set to handle only files of a certain size (e.g., larger than 3 MB). Plus, it can automatically archive e-mail attachments and log all activity.

Check out this link for pricing and more information.

Huge Security Flaw for a Password-Protected iPhone

ted — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 18:30:00 GMT

I've seen this on at least two sites but thought I'd post it here as well. The more this gets out to the world, the better we'll ALL be:

If you password protect your iPhone, anyone can bypass your password protection by tapping on the "emergency call" button. From there, they can double-tap on teh home button and access your favorites.

Quoting from Gizmodo:

If that wasn't bad enough, the second one is even worse: if you tap on the blue arrows next to the names, it will give you full access to the private information in a favorite entry. And it goes downhill from there:

• If you click in a mail address, it will give you full access to the Mail application. All your mail will be exposed.
• If there's a URL in your contact (or in a mail message) you can click on it and have full access to Safari.
• If you click on send text message in a contact, it will give you full access to all your SMS.

Hopefully, this major security break that fully exposes your most private information will be solved as soon as possible. Until then, you can avoid any potential breach doing the following:

1. In the iPhone home, go to Settings.
2. Click on General.
3. Click on Home Button.
4. Click on either "Home" or "iPod".

Apparently, Apple is aware of this issue and will fix it with their next software update.

GMail over HTTPS/SSL

ted — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 23:25:00 GMT

Take a look at this article from Slashdot. This is an excellent reason to browse your messages, whether they be on our Shared Exchange network, or on GMail's servers over HTTPS (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol)/SSL (Secure Socket Layer). HTTPS/SSL is basically a more secure way to connect to a website or a mail server and adds an extra layer of security to your web browsing all of the data you send/receive from your browser is encrypted. If you look at a website's URL, you should see a lock icon in the top-right corner (Internet Explorer) or bottom-right corner (Firefox) letting you know that you're over a secure connection.

If you want to always connect to GMail's site over a secure connection, log into your account and go to Settings. On the bottom of the settings list, you'll see a radio button next to "Always use https" without quotes. Save it and you're all set!

Installing a non-Standard SSL Certificate onto an iPhone

ted — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 15:32:00 GMT

While this will work with Windows Mobile devices as well, with the popularity of the new iPhone, the question of installing non-standart (self-generated for example) certificates has come up in conversation here in the office.

If you need to install an SSL certificate onto your device, your best bet is to download the file and email it to yourself to an account you have access to on the device. (You can set up a GMail account, for example, and send the file to that.) Open the attached SSL certificate on your iPhone and, when prompted, opt to install it onto your phone. You should then be able to set up your iPhone to work with ActiveSync with your Exchange server.

I found this information here, they also talk about an alternative method as well which involves downloading some Apple software called the Enterprise Configuration utility.

To download a copy of your SSL certificate do the following :

1. Go to your Outloook Web Access page (https://mail.mydomain.com for example)

2. Click on the lock icon on the right-hand side of the address bar and click on View Certificates

3. Click on the Details tab then click on the Copy to File button

4. Take the defaults in the wizard and name the certificate whatever you chose when prompted then click next.

5. Click on Finish.

You now have a copy of the certificate on your desktop.

We're using Twitter

ted — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 19:03:00 GMT

If you're a Twitter user, good news! Lanlogic has now created an account called, strangely enough, lanlogic! Feel free to add @lanlogic to get tweets from us about new Blog posts, new KB articles and general information as we post it. You can view our Tweets by going to www.twitter.com/lanlogic.

Factory Resetting an iPhone

ted — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:37:00 GMT

It happens sometimes; you've got to completely erase your phone or mobile device for whatever reason. Well, for the iPhone, it's not difficult. Just do the following:

1. Go to Settings from the main screen.

2. Select General

3. Select Reset (you'll need to scroll down to see it)

4. Select Erase All Contents and Settings

This will erase all data from your iPhone and can take up to two hours to do so, so you'll want to make sure that the device is charged or plugged into the AC adapter while you're doing this.

Want to upgrade your iPhone via another method?

ted — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:21:00 GMT

Check out this link to Mac Rumors. I did this yesterday (after upgrading to iTunes 7.7) and had no problems whatsoever with the upgrade. Just make sure that you've fully charged your iPhone!

iPhone 2.0, First-Blush Thoughts

ted — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:19:00 GMT

So the 2.0 software/firmware has officially been out for only a few hours but I was able to upgrade my phone yesterday through some back-door means and the upgrade process went very smoothly. I've heard a few reports of failed upgrades so far this morning, but they've been few and far between.

The first impression I got from the 2.0 software was the ease of setting up ActiveSync. All you need (for Shared Exchange at least) is your email address, password and username (which is generally your email address) as well as your Shared Exchange server name. It was actually easier to set up the iPhone with ActiveSync than it is with a Windows Mobile device. No need for a truncated-to-16-character username for this guy! Instructions for activating your Shared Exchange mailbox can be found here.

The App Store has some pretty interesting applications too, I've already installed a good number of applications onto the device and, so far, they've all been free. I've got Pandora (online music station), JOTT (audio notes to self that are transcribed and emailed to you), and ShoZu (easy photo emailing to sites like Flickr). I've also installed a few "fun" applications including a super-nerdy lightsaber application that uses the accelerometer to know when I'm moving the iPhone around.

It's too early to tell how the battery life will be affected by ActiveSync's push email, but I don't expect that it'll be too bad.

Again, I've only been running 2.0 for less than 24 hours so there's plenty to still dig into, but so far, I like it!

**UPDATE**

I found out about a VERY cool little add-on that makes me very happy. You can now take screenshots directly from your iPhone: Press and hold the "home" button then tap the power button on the top. Whatever is on your iPhone's screen will then be saved as a picture on your Camera Roll to be done with as you please. Me, I'm taking screenshots of the ActiveSync setup and will be uploading them to our KB article soon.

ActiveSync on the iPhone, now coming in July!

ted — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 20:58:00 GMT

So, now that the dust has (mostly) settled on the WWDC in San Francisco this morning and Uncle Steve's finished with his keynote, the one big question I had (as well as all of our customers with iPhones) is: When can I get some of that sweet iPhone 2.0 love?

July.

So, that means I'll need to wait another month or so before I can use ActiveSync on my iPhone. That's cool, I can wait. But if they push it much farther than that, I'll start getting annoyed...

Three weeks with an iPhone

ted — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:40:00 GMT

I've been using the iPhone for a few weeks now and wanted to share my thought on it as a phone, a wireless device and, finally, as an email client.

1. Phone

Fantastic! Sound quality is great, BlueTooth integration was a snap and I'm not getting any lost/dropped calls at all. The ability to take the phone away from your ear and the screen lighting up is a great touch when you want to end a call or do something else. I'm very impressed, again, with the sound quality. I've lost some hearing in my right ear (too many ear infections caused by chlorinated water in my youth) and have found it difficult to use cell phones with that ear in the past. With the iPhone, I don't even need to turn the volume all the way up!

2. Wireless device

After getting around the issue of my fat fingers and the touchscreen on the phone, I've found it much easier to type after a few days. There's no tactile feel of the buttons being pushed like with the other devices I've used in the past so it took me a while to wrap my brain around it, and I'm still not typing as fast on it as I was my 8525, for example, but I do like the keyboard.

The built-in applications are very easy to use. Adding cities to the Weather app, for example, is very intuitive and there's no need to RTFM. It took me almost no time whatsoever to get used to navigating from one app to another. The SMS interface is clean and it's nice to see a conversation separated out as well. While there aren't a ton of third-party applications for the iPhone that I've found very useful or don't require an internet connection, I am using PocketTweets to update Twitter from the road. Using the WiFi connection on the device is easy as pie too. I've got it set for auto-discover so I get prompted to join random wireless networks from time to time, but I've got it tied into my work and home networks so I'm not sending/receiving data over the slow AT&T wireless network. It makes browsing much faster. Voice over WiFi would be fantastic, but isn't a deal-breaker to be sure.

3. Email client

This is where I have to start speaking poorly of the iPhone, with one caveat: iPhone firmware 2.0 should resolve this issue when they start supporting ActiveSync.

Right now though? Painful when connected to Exchange. Delete a message on your phone? Doesn't delete on the server. It's just marked as read. Send an email from the phone? Doesn't show up in Sent Items in Outlook. Wireless sync of Contacts and Calendar? Nope.

Bummer.

It works great with Gmail though...

All said, I'm really glad I've got the iPhone. I didn't even touch on the iPod and video playback functionality (all Firefly episodes on the device FTW!), but it's great. The camera is very nice, and the built-in ability to set pictures as your wallpaper and/or email to contacts is a nice touch too.

Apple Licenses Microsoft ActiveSync software for the iPhone

ted — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 01:00:00 GMT

Geeks/Apple Fanboys rejoice!

Apple made the big announcement today that they have licensed Microsoft’s ActiveSync technology to enable push sync between Exchange 2003/2007 and the Apple iPhone. You will likely start getting asked about this news, so here are some things to be aware of.

· Beta program opened today, but you must be approved by Apple to get the software.

Software will become publicly available as part of the iPhone 2.0 software update in June.

o Requires an Apple computer running OS X Leopard 10.5.2 to install

o This will be a free update for all iPhone users

· ActiveSync on the iPhone will enable the following features:

o Push email, calendar, contacts from Exchange mailbox

o Global Address List access

o Full support for Cisco IPSec VPN, WPA2 Enterprise, 802.1x authentication

o Remote wipe from Exchange Server or Outlook Web Access

Information from Apple can be seen here.

The Microsoft Exchange Team announcement is here

Interesting new Spam Varient

ted — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 21:19:00 GMT

I got a few messages like this over the weekend to my Gmail account:

This is interesting for many reasons but the most imaginative one is the fact that this looks very much like a legitimate Non-Deliverable Message until you get to the bottom. I didn't actually click on the link (I'm stupid but not crazy) to see where it goes but the spammers are getting better and better at masking their messages to get people to actually open them. I see scores of spam messages weekly in my position here at Lanlogic and am rarely surprised, this one surprised me.

Good times.