Johann's Unified Communications : me

I’m back

jkruse — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 03:36:40 GMT

I’m back from a long period of silence, but I have some very good reasons for going dark – my wedding, honeymoon, and new house. It’s been a life-changing couple of months – sometimes stressful, but overall some of the best experiences I’ve ever had.

Veronica and me getting married

Krabi, Thailand

Panorama of Phranang Beach, Krabi

Infinity Pool at Evason Phuket

A lot has also happened in the world of UC while I was away, not least of which is our OCS 2007 R2 announcements.

I’ve been back in the office for a week, and still have a million things to catch up on – but one of the great things this week was when I caught up with Greig Sheridan from 3D Networks. He has just picked up himself a very nice Audi S3, and check out his number plate…

Greig Sheridan’s new car

And in more recent news, I am of course once again taking part in Movember……

Clean-shaven on Movember the 1st

Movember is a fundraising event held during November each year that raises awareness about male health issues.

The money raised by Movember is donated to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and beyondblue - the national depression initiative. The PCFA and beyondblue will use the funds to fund research and increase support networks for those men who suffer from prostate cancer and depression.

The official website is http://au.movember.com and more information on the Movember Foundation is at http://au.movember.com/outcomes/content/Movember-Foundation

To sponsor the Microsoft Mo Bros…….

Click this link https://www.movember.com/au/donate/donate-details.php?action=sponsorlink&rego=1728386&country=au and donate online using your credit card or PayPal account, or
Write a cheque payable to ‘Movember Foundation', referencing our Registration Number 1728386 and mailing it to:
                                            Movember Foundation
                                            PO Box 292
                                            Prahran VIC 3181
All donations over $2 are tax deductible (in Australia).

And keep an eye out for updates now that I’m back online :)

Back from Vietnam

jkruse — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 04:48:00 GMT

I'm officially back in the office after a couple of weeks holidaying in Vietnam. Completely off the grid - no phone, no Internet, no computer, no news, no anything. Very relaxing, and much needed.

On a technology note however, I did pick up a new camera - an Olympus SP550.

It an awesome camera - great lens, great picture quality, and an 18x optical zoom.

Below are some photos I took of the trip - more can be found on my Flickr site, and some personal ones will be on my Facebook page tonight.

I knocked off most of my emails yesterday - now it's time to catch up on all the news!

And of course I played with Windows Live Photo Gallery panoramas :)

Technorati Tags: me, travel, vietnam, photos

Share this post :

IM me!

On holidays

jkruse — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 07:03:30 GMT

I'm off on holidays for 2 weeks, so there will be no new blog posts until the beginning of March.

Have a great February!

Conference galore

jkruse — Wed, 16 May 2007 01:51:55 GMT

It's been a while since I posted, so what has been happening this week?

On Monday I co-presented with Sandra Lee Joe at the APAC Sharepoint Conference - we demoed OCS 2007 and the full Microsoft UC stack.

Yesterday I co-presented with Derek Snyder at MEDC, this time on Exchange 2007 and Windows Mobile 6. MEDC was a great conference - a great vibe, and heaps of passionate mobility developers asking the tough questions. I'm hoping to get involved with MEDC in the US next year as I has such a great time.

Next up is TechEd at the Gold Coast. We were at the Gold Coast in 2005 and it was a lot of fun, so I'm looking forward to this year.

Over the next few weeks I will be building a new Virtual PC-based demo environment of OCS, Exchange and Sharepoint. Keep an eye out for posts describing the experience, and giving step-by-step guides on how I go about doing it.

Here's a shot from yesterday of James McCutcheon presenting on Windows Mobile security (taken with my Samsung Blackjack)....

Iiiit's a small word, after all ...

jkruse — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 12:28:00 GMT

We recently hired a new Developer Evangelist in Brisbane who goes by the name of Scott Barnes.

When I read about him on Frank's blog, I was scratching my head wondering why this name seemed so familiar. Well it turns out that not only did we work together at a Brisbane ISP in 1998/99 (I was the onsite techo for corporate customers, he was a web developer), but he also did some Ascii art for my old dial-up BBS when I was still in high-school (I had three 28.8K lines - I was 13370).

Memmmmmmmmoriiiiiiiiiiiiiies...

(oh yeah, and welcome aboard Scott)

I've been tagged

jkruse — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 01:30:00 GMT

I’ve watched this tagging meme doing the rounds - slowly circling me, coming closer.. closer. Now, thanks to Angus, it’s my turn to stroke my own ego in public.

So, here are 5 things about me that you probably didn’t know.

1. I played rugby before I went to school. I was born in New Zealand after all J I started school when I was 5, but I was playing rugby at 4 (you know – when you don’t wear boots, and you tackle your team-mates and steal the ball because you don’t understand the rules). I still play and, touch wood, to this day I haven’t had a serious injury (if you don’t count almost biting my tongue off last year as serious – I don’t).

2. I was a koala. Not long after finishing high school I was walking through Brisbane city with a mate and we saw a Wilderness Society koala collecting donations. We thought it looked like fun, so later that afternoon we were both koalas. Possibly my most fun job ever, although in hindsight voluntarily wearing a head-to-toe fur coat in the middle of a Brisbane summer was a bit strange. (Stranger still was that a schoolmate once recognised me from across the street as I wildly danced in my koala suit (quote:“only you would do something so stupid, Johann”)).

3. I love airports. And airline food. Most people hate them, I love them. The love affair began several years ago during a 17-hour stopover at Changi Airport in Singapore, where I had a brilliant time.

4. I was a pro skateboarder. Yes that’s right, for a while there I was paid to ride my longboard downhill at speeds so stupid and dangerous that these days I would ban my kids from even thinking about it (if I had kids).

5. I was Captain of the Young Endeavour. In 2003 I was Master and Commander of the ship and crew off the coast of New South Wales (including during a massive storm complete with water-spouts), but only for 24 hours J

Now of course I have to tag five others. Umm.. Mario D'Silva, Jeff Alexander, (this is hard, everyone's already been tagged!), RockyH, and I will edit this post shortly with two more :)

My new blog

jkruse — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 14:19:00 GMT

Welcome to another Microsoft-ee blog.

In case you haven't guessed yet, my name is Johann Kruse. I'm a Technology Specialist in Unified Communications for Microsoft in Sydney Australia - which means I am the local technical guy for anything and everything related to Exchange, LCS, Unified Messaging, VOIP, and comms/collaboration in general.

I've been in this role for about 18 months. Prior to this I was the Network Manager at ninemsn, where I was responsible for pretty much everything IT related - Exchange, AD, routing, comms, security, architecture, telephony.. even the air-conditioning. I've now narrowed my focus somewhat, and am lucky enough to spend my time to working with two of the most interesting, exciting and innovative communications technologies in the world - Exchange Server and Live Communications Server.

So why this blog? Well first of all I wanted to connect more with the broader technical community and get your thoughts/feedback/etc about the goings-on in the UC world. But mostly I am doing this because I think it will be a fun and enlightening experience. I feel that we are about to embark on a journey, that this will be something special.

In some ways this blog post is kind of like our first date - I'm nervous and awkward, probably trying just a little too hard to be funny and impress you. Of course you've been doing this for a while, you've seen it before - and you certainly won't be fooled so easily by a pretender like me.

Yet you are curious. You're willing to give me a chance, spend some time to get to know me.

Maybe we can make this work.

It could become something great. Let's give it a shot. Let's not spend the rest of our lives thinking "What if? ...".

So anyway, time for some Exchange trivia.

When you install Exchange 2007 into an existing 2003 organisation it automatically creates some admin and routing groups for interoperability ...

Exchange Administrative Group (FYDIBOHF23SPDLT)

and

Exchange Routing Group (DWBGZMFD01QNBJR)

I know what you're thinking. What do those letters mean? Are they random? What is the point of this???

Well - try shifting each letter one space backwards or forwards. What do you get?

EXCHANGE12ROCKS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!