I needed to change the mailbox/calendar settings on Rooms for meeting reservations in Outlook.
2018 – Ready, Set, GO!
We all know the usual platitudes around the new year. We’ve heard them, we’ve said them, and it’s the same every year. “New Year, New Me”, “This is my year!” or the ever-increasing spate of diet and fitness articles books and well-meaning resolutions. It’s our traditional or perhaps even natural tendency to look forward optimistically,…
How a cloud service pays for itself in one emergency
Imagine this scenario: It’s Friday evening and a storm that was going to hit a nearby town veers off toward your corporate HQ. Suddenly you are looking at torrential rains and flooding of biblical proportions at your corporate HQ. Oh, and to top it off it’s your major stocking location for your national distribution business….
TechMentor Redmond 2017 – the short(ish) version
What is TechMentor? The answers range from the serious business case to the snarky, depending whom you ask and when. The short answer: it’s a tech conference focused on education for IT Professionals. The long answer can be found here on their site. For me, it’s a recharging of my mental batteries and a chance to…
Windows 2016 and DSC – Like Peanut Butter and Chocolate
We’ve all heard about DSC, right? Sure you have. Maybe you’ve been playing around a bit in labs or using for test environments. Why haven’t we all taken the plunge to Infrastructure as Code ( or more accurately Infrastructure from Code)? Because it’s hard, and we’re busy? Likely, it’s because we don’t have the opportunity to go…
Quick VPN Reset for Windows Insiders
As a “Windows Insider” on the Fast Ring, I get new builds of Windows semi-frequently. Love it! Great! Oh wait, now to VPN into the office for that 3am emergency I have to reconfigure my VPN because the installation of the new build hosed it. ARRGGH! To be clear, it’s NOT because of a fault…
Whose Job Is It Anyway?
Disclaimer: This is a generalized rewrite of an article I wrote for a company newsletter. I’m adding here because I think we ALL need a little reminder. Actually the better way to phrase that would be “Whose career is it anyway?” Right? I mean most of us prefer to think of how we spend our…
TestLab v2 – The aborted build
If you missed the first two parts to this , start here and continue here…. <SNIP!> So the reason for the long delay in finishing this is due to some hardware problems with my test server. What was going to work fine for a 2012 server, doesn’t work for crap in 2016. The problem is in the…
Test Lab v2 – the Planning Stage
(For the introduction post : Rebuilding the Test Lab v2 ) Before getting into the actual planning let me describe the environment and restrictions. Hardware Dell 2950 w/ 2 Xeon 3GHz CPUs, 32 GB RAM, 12 TB JBOD Direct attached Software Windows 2012 R2 (full install), Hyper-V role, with Windows Deduplication running on the JBOD to keep file…
Rebuilding the Test Lab v2
Last year I wrote an article for Powershell.org extolling the benefits of a home lab and how it didn’t cost much to build a basic one. You can read it here. That lab has done me well, but things change and needs increase and opportunities arise. The needs changing obviously is ” I want to be…