Kent Compton

The Outlook Connector Part 2

For those of you who want to only download the Outlook Connector you can go to http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=9A2279B1-DF0A-46E1-AA93-7D4870871ECF&displaylang=en. 

THE Outlook Connector

In addition to the product planning I do for Windows Live, I also work with the Microsoft Office Outlook team on the Outlook Connector.  What is the Outlook Connector you ask?  It is a grossly underutilized sync solution for people who are both Hotmail users and who have Outlook 2003 or 2007.  If you’re interested in the technical details of what it does, take a look at, Omar’s blog (my coworker in Windows Live).  Basically, it syncs your Hotmail email, calendar, and contacts via a technology called DeltaSync (multiply the functionality of IMAP by 10x <g>).  

Sadly, doing a search in your favorite search for the words “sync Outlook with Hotmail” (no quotes) yields very few results (other than Omar’s) for the Outlook Connector, so I doubt many people can find it.  That’s a shame because I know from my research that people want to easily interchange work and personal items (mainly calendar and contacts).   The Outlook Connector makes that possible!   I use it on each of the 7 PCs I frequently use.  Its incredibly powerful.  If you receive an email to your work email account that is really personal when you reply you can change which account its sent from to be your Hotmail account.  With Outlook’s side by side calendar support (see link and picture below), you can drag an appointment from your work calendar on the left to your Hotmail Calendar on the right. 

You can get the Outlook Connector from http://download.live.com.  If you install the entire Essentials suite and have Outlook on your PC it’ll be automatically installed.  You can also just pick the OLC if for some reason you didn’t want the rest of Windows Live Essentials.

Here’s my cheap way of increasing the likelihood that someone will be able to find this post:

sync, synchronization, Hotmail, Outlook, 2003, 2007, Exchange, e-mail, calendar, contacts, Microsoft 

:-)

“I’d like to try Hotmail but I already have an existing Email account”

Do you have existing non-Hotmail/Live email account that you’ve had for a number of years?  Are you intrigued by the some of the new features and functionality of Windows Live Hotmail?  Perhaps you’re running into the other provider’s email storage limit?  Tired of having to mark all your email in Gmail with a category?  Then I have a deal for you.   

A company called TrueSwitch has technology that enables you to copy/export your email, contacts/address book, calendar, etc data from your current, non-Microsoft service (e.g. Yahoo) to Windows Live Hotmail (which includes email, contacts/address book, calendar, etc).  Microsoft has an agreement with TrueSwitch so you can copy/export your mail et al from your existing account to Windows Live Hotmail without paying a fee.   Here is a list of services that TrueSwitch supports:

The only “gotcha” I’ve seen using the service is all of the imported emails are shown/marked as unread.  The workaround is to move all of the read emails in the current service into their own folder (perhaps named Read Email), and then migrate your account via TrueSwitch.  Once all the email has been imported into Hotmail, you can then mark all of the email in the Read Email folder as read and then move them into your Inbox folder (that contains all of your unread email).   The date and timestamps from the email are preserved so you won’t see the last six year’s email as if it’d all arrived today.   Unfortunately, Gmail only has “categories” which I haven’t found a good workaround for yet.  Suggestions welcome.   

To test out Windows Live Hotmail with all of your real data from your “legacy” email service go to:

https://secure5.trueswitch.com/winlive/  

NOTE: TrueSwitch only copies/exports the old account data, it does not move it. Nothing from your old account will be deleted.

The Power of the Blog

I am humbled by how much traffic my blog post yesterday generated.  It was apparently linked to/picked up by a couple of sites with quite a readership.  I/we got an amazing amount of email to the new account.   Wow. 

However, I need to right a wrong.  The Windows Live team has an official means for submitting feedback already in place.  Go to http://feedback.live.com, click on the appropriate product or service, and then type in your feedback.  I couldn’t be easier.   I’m relatively new to this group and I didn’t even know that site existed.  Yet, it serves the exact function I created the wish email account in the first place—give you a place to give us feedback.  Long story short, there’s this great feedback site at http://feedback.live.com…

Cheers,
Kent

Updated: What would you like changed/improved in Windows Live?

Updated Post (posted on March 4, 2009):

Several keen observers sent email to me about my newly established livewish email address gently reminding me of an already established communication vehicle to get feedback to the Windows Live team. 

The official and preferred feedback mechanism to connect with and give ideas to the Windows Live teams is via: https://feedback.live.com/default.aspx

Mea culpa.  The feedback.live.com system does a terrific job and I was remiss in not pointing it out in my original post.  I still believe in frictionless communication so the email address will still be active but you should only use it as a last resort (e.g. you’re at 30K feet on a non-WiFi connected airplane and just have to get your suggestion queued for us).  I simply won’t be able to keep up with the emailed suggestions I’ve been getting so the feedback site is a much better choice.

Its also worth noting, if you need support for any of the Windows Live services, please go to https://support.live.com/default.aspx and if you have Hotmail specific questions, go to http://windowslivehelp.com/Default.aspx  I’ve mentioned it before but the official Windows Live team blog is http://windowslivewire.spaces.live.com/default.aspx

My original post below has been updated in a few places (denoted via the red font).  I never anticipated my simple blog post would get picked up so far and wide (I feel like Scoble <grin>).  THANK YOU to those of you who have already sent in your suggestions. 

Your humble planner,

Kent

Original Post (posted on March 3, 2009):

Most people feel it is too hard to give someone at Microsoft their feedback for how they’d like to see the product’s work.  I know I felt that too when I was a non-Microsoft employee (and I still feel that way as a consumer of other company’s goods and services).  I believe this has changed for the better in recent years with the proliferation of blogs (which allow comments), Help | Send Feedback (for Windows Live products), etc. 

My goal as a product planner is to remove any interference/resistance between the great ideas you have and our ability as the product group to implement them. 

Invariably, after a company puts in place a feedback system there are a few people who say “why should I give my ideas to company x just so they can make money from them”.  They have a valid point, and for those people who have the inclination and talent to write software, maintain it, support it, globalize it, etc. I encourage them to get coding—the world needs more great software developers and applications.  However, the feedback we want as a product group is much more granular, think feature-level or simplifying the steps it takes to get x done, not ideas for an entirely new product.

If you have an idea that you think would make, for example, Windows Live Mail, work better please submit the idea to http://feedback.live.com   If you send email to the following email address you’ll receive an auto-reply email asking you to submit your ideas via the feedback web site.   

I’m sorry for the image.  Its a hack to lower the likelihood of spam bots easily obtaining the actual email address.  I chose this email address because its easy to remember and it allows several of us (starting with me) to read the email and then forward the email onto the appropriate planner in Windows Live.   However, the email address’s backend process (me!) simply won’t scale to meet the number of suggestions its receiving. 

Please understand, that we receive numerous ideas just because you’ve sent your suggestion doesn’t mean it will make it into the product in question in the next version, or the version after that, or the version after that version.  This is due to a process called prioritization where the release’s theme, overall usefulness in lieu of another feature is determined (since resources such as developers and their time are finite), a target audience is defined (a power user feature versus an average user feature), etc.  

We’re always looking for ideas that impact a wide swath of people and with great frequency.   AutoCorrect is one of the greatest features that positively impacts hundreds of millions of users each day that we probably get enough credit for.  In fact, I wish that Windows Live Writer (and lots of our other apps) supported AutoCorrect because while I type fast I have an incredible knack for mistyping or misspelling the same words over and over.  That’s a feature idea that I’d like to see be implemented in more of the Windows Live Essentials products. 

Long story short, we’re listening… (even if it via https and not as much via SMTP :-) )

Thank you for using Windows Live.

Gadgets – Do you Love them or Leave them?

Gadgets seem to one of those things in computers that polarize people.  Gadgets, in the Windows world, are little pieces of code, jscript and/or XML (depending on the gadget) that sits primarily in the Sidebar in Vista and anywhere on the desktop in Windows 7.  Some people rely on them heavily while others disdain them for taking up memory, processor or hard drive I/Os.  I am in the former camp—I rely on them to tell me how my computer is performing, what the weather is, which appointments I have coming up and as a way to look up references.  

I add the following gadgets to all of my computers: Digital Dutch Clock, MSN Weather, Multi Meter, HDD Meter or Multimeter,  Outlook Appointments, and Wikipedia.  Two of those gadgets—the Digital Dutch Clock and MSN Weather—replace the gadgets that come with Windows.   I like the DDC because it shows additional info that Window’s default clock gadget doesn’t have (see below).  Jan, DDC’s developer, was kind enough to rev his gadget for Windows 7 when I sent him email letting him know that the previous version wasn’t properly rendering.  I love the developer community and am especially appreciative of Jan turning around the update so quickly (3 weeks!). 

I like the MSN Weather gadget because it has a small profile:

that can be flown-out to a 3-day forecast simply by clicking on it: 

Window’s default gadget has a 3-day profile too but its either in the small state or the large state, not both.  For example, you can undock the default gadget from Vista’s Sidebar to get it to show the 3-day forecast; however, clicking on anything but the City, State (which launches a web site) doesn’t do anything.

The real downside with some gadgets is that, like any app, they can leak memory.  Fortunately, logging out and logging back in resets them to a baseline.   I hope that someday I’ll be able to tell which gadget is leaking memory and work with the developer to fix it or simply turn it off.  I don’t have the time to turn them off individually and wait a couple of days.

BTW, Windows 7 is a great OS.  It takes all of Vista’s strengths and enhances them and its challenges and minimizes or eliminates them.  For now, that’ll have to wait to be another post or you can go to someone else’s blog like the Windows 7 team…

The NEW Windows Live Essentials is now available!

The “gold” version of the Windows Live Essentials applications (e.g. Mail, Photo Gallery, Writer--which I’m using to write this blog, the Outlook Connector, etc.) are available now at http://download.live.com  This final version was in beta when I joined the WL team a couple of months ago.  Anyone who is running the version that came out ~12 months ago will really enjoy the added functionality and integration.  

My personal favorite is Windows Live Photo Gallery because my family has 40K+ photos.  WLPG makes it super easy to organize, categorize, and do minor edits (e.g. fix red-eye) on photos.  If you use Windows Live Messenger, Facebook, LinkedIn and a number of other cloud services you’ll probably appreciate the ease at which you can tag photos that include people.  

Oh, and did I mention that Windows Live Essentials is free?  Don’t take my word, you be the judge.

Enjoy!  

I’ve got a new job

After 3.5 years as the product planner for Windows Essential Business Server, today I began a new job in the Windows Live Experience team.   I will be one of the “desktop communications” product planners which basically means I’ll be contributing to cool, big market products like Windows Live Communicator, Windows Live Mail (which is one of the premier clients for Hotmail) and one of my personal favorites, the Outlook Connector.  If you are not familiar with Windows Live I encourage you to visit www.windowslive.com.  The new “Wave 3” version is getting incredible reviews and deservedly so.

While I’ll greatly miss all of the people I met while I was gathering research on Midsize Businesses my new job gives me a chance to contribute on a product that literally is used by hundreds of millions of people around the world.  To paraphrase David Bowie having that many customers fits into category of “Under pressure”

I’ll be hanging out in the newsgroups looking for feedback but if you have suggestions for me as it pertains to my new job, fire away. 

Cheers

EBS has Released to Manufacturing BABY!

After 3.5 years of development, I am happy to announce that we have released Essential Business Server 2008 to manufacturing (aka RTMed)!  I have seen the product come along way in that time and am very proud of the work the team has put into EBS. 

I have been meeting with customers these past two weeks (and will be again in the next couple of weeks) and I can say with great certainty that all of our research, planning and customer connections has paid off very well.  Although I don’t like hearing about the struggles that IT Administrators have with their IT today, its nice to know that EBS 2008 will help with many of those issues. 

EBS 2008 reduces the pain of installation and migration, turns unmonitored environments in managed ones, deploys patches and software, gives the business world-class remote access out of the box, enables the IT Administrator to easily setup Windows SharePoint Services as an intranet, and finally integrates with numerous 3rd party (not in our box) programs.

November 12 is the REAL big day—that’s when the product is officially launched and will be generally available to purchase. 

Finally, when your friends ask about Essential Business Server just point them to http://www.microsoft.com/ebs

RC1 is complete, only one more to go!

It was a big day for the product group.  We signed off on Windows Essential Business Server release candidate 1 today!  It will be available on Connect and the Public Preview will be refreshed very soon.

I can’t wait until we RTM (release to manufacturing) and then EBS is made available broadly so Midsize organization IT Administrators and our partners can experience all of the hard work.  

RTM is just around the corner!

Goodbye Bill

Some Seriously Functional Wallpaper Eye Candy

I have been a huge fan of SysInternals long before Microsoft acquired the company a few year ago and rebadged its founders/super talents Mark Russinovich and Bryce Cogswell.  If you ever get a chance to see/hear Mark in person I highly recommend doing so.  His sessions at TechEd, etc. are always among the highest rated and his depth is unbelievable. In addition to Mark and Bryce’s speaking abilities, they have written some of the best utilities for Administrators and Developers (maybe ever!). Hyperbole intended. 

One of my favorite, everyday use, Administrator must-have utilities is SysInternals’ BgInfo.  BgInfo is a program that simply places data that typically requires lots of typing or clicking on a computer such as the machine’s name, its IP address, its uptime, disk space free, etc. on top of the computer’s background wallpaper.  Here is a screen capture from my Essential Business Server’s Management Server:

You can download BgInfo from here (read the EULA) to see for yourself what it does to your computer(s). 

Since I love EBS Administrators, I’ve gone a step further and saved my BgInfo configuration/settings file so you to can display the information in the above screenshot on your EBS servers.   Download the settings file, a batch file to load the settings file, and exported a Task Scheduler setting file that enables it to run every morning at 6 AM from here (its a Windows Live Skydrive public folder) and place them on a USB flash drive.  The bat file is 130K but the other two are ~3K and completely transparent (no malware). 

Instructions to configure BgInfo on your EBS servers:

1. Create a directory named “Background Info” under “%SystemDrive%\Program Files (x86)”
2. Copy BgInfo.exe, BackgroundInfoRefresh.bat and EBS_Background_Settings.bgi from the flash drive to the aforementioned directory. 
3. Launch BgInfo.exe and choose to Accept/Decline the EULA.  Assuming you Accept, then close BgInfo and run BackgroundInfoRefresh.bat   You should now see the system’s information in the lower left hand corner of the screen.
4. Open Task Scheduler (enter Task Scheduler in the start search control after hitting the Start button).
5. Click Import in the right-hand pane and select “Refresh Background Information.xml” file.  Change the time, frequency, etc to your liking and Save
6. Open the All Users’ Startup folder (“%Systemdrive%\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup”)
7. Change the account in which the Refresh Background Information scheduled task to someone other than me (unless you want to give me Admin access to your server <grin>).
8. Create a shortcut to the BackgroundInfoRefresh.bat file to make sure the background information is refreshed each time you or another IT Administrator log in.
9. Rinse and Repeat on the other two servers.

Enjoy.  

Note: The background information will not be visible if you’re using Remote Desktop Connection with “low bandwidth” settings.  Make sure your RDC settings (Experience | Desktop Background) are On so you can see this info.  Otherwise, its a KVM-only solution. 

You Deserve More Than "Good Enough"

When I was an Enterprise Strategist and then Consultant in Microsoft's US Midwest sales district, one of the most frustrating situations I experienced were customers (mainly enterprise: 20K+ desktops, 1000+ servers) who didn't utilize technology to its fullest.  I was always troubled by how much untapped IT potential customers had at their disposal.  They'd spend $100K on a solution that they already owned.  Mea culpa?  Its possible they may have not known what they had because I didn't get to meet them until it was too late (and we as a company didn't make it easy enough to discover/utilize).

Windows Server is a great example.  There are a multitude of services ("applications" in some ISV's vernacular) in Windows Server that enable it do much more than just the typical workloads such as file, print, and directory.  Off the top of my head I can think of: .NET [application engine], IIS [web hosting], terminal services [there's an addt'l fee for the TS CAL], media hosting/streaming, Kerberos realms, desktop management via group policy objects, clustering, network load balancing, and remote routing.  Yet, too often and too late, I'd find out my customer had purchased a one-off solution that had little to no synergy with the company's IT strategy or current initiatives (TCO/cost reduction, simplification, manageability, rapid application development, etc.).  BTW, even file and directory services can do much, much more.  For example, the file service supports Volume Shadow Copy snapshots which make it easy for a user to retrieve their own deleted/changed file(s) and the directory service does highly scalable DNS and LDAP.

A few years ago, Gartner released a study that revealed a typical enterprise customer had ~130 directories.  This doesn't surprise me because I've met with lots of customers who have built their own directory service.  They didn't necessarily think of it that way--an application needed to be build (yesterday!) and they needed a way to authenticate/authorize the people who needed access to it.  Problem was the app created an additional user ID, password, password policy, helpdesk procedure to reset the password policy, security attack vector, etc.  If they'd leveraged Active Directory and IIS (SQL can utilize AD too) their users could have seamlessly gotten to the app without doing anything more than clicking a hypertext link or favorite.  Who wins in this case?  No one except for the software vendor.  The developers have to write authentication code (adding time to their schedule if they do it with security best practices in mind), the users have to remember another user ID and/or password, the helpdesk has to one-off support another user ID and/or password and the finance people spend money for what amounts to more complexity.    That's a lot of User IDs and passwords!  One of the understated benefits of working at Microsoft is having a single password.  I only have to remember one password which is great since I have about a 1000 to remember as I browse the 'net.

What does any of this have to do with "good enough"?  I'm glad you asked.

Just like their Enterprise brethren, I've found that most Midsize businesses are just scratching the surface when it comes to leveraging technology.  For example, of the hundreds of companies we've visited only a handful are able to find the time to truly utilize the power of the Microsoft platform.  One company, a construction materials manufacturer we visited in Vancouver, Canada is leveraging the published APIs that Microsoft's server products expose by consuming them in .NET and presenting the results via dynamic web pages in IIS/Active Server Pages.  The pages show server uptime, when a user last logged in and on which machine, backup successes/failures, device management and inventory, drive space, etc.  I love meeting with customers who are REALLY pushing [our] technology like this.  I know that most IT Administrators I've surveyed and visited would love to have that data at their fingertips as well.  We love it so much we're putting much of that functionality into EBS (accessible via the Administration Console). :-) 

One of the areas I've heard good enough mentioned many times is in reference to open source software.  Open source code enthusiasts emphatically believe there is no reason a company should purchase and use Microsoft software (see "Running Only on Open-Source Software".  BTW, a small business company named Smartleaf is quoted liberally and their Chief Architect is Robert Thau who just happens to be one of the principal authors of Apache).  I believe some open source software is (very) good and useful in the hands of the right people at the right company, but based on my research I don't believe its in the best interests of most companies (especially midsize) to widely adopt it just because the initial software acquisition cost is less.  For example, I've visited some companies who are only using Windows Server for basic file (read/write) and directory services (authenticate/authorization).  A few of the IT Administrators told me that they thought SAMBA and LDAP might be good enough because they're really not doing anything extravagant. They need to push Windows Server harder where it really begins to add value and reduces operational cost.  In the next breath, one said the users were adding "non-company approved" software to their PCs and they were having problems as a result.  We discussed locking down the company's PCs using Organization Units (create another OU for the exceptions) and group policy objects (made possible because of the deep integration between Active Directory and the Windows workstation--there are almost 3000 GPOs in Vista and Windows Server 2008*).  For one that needed a new application I suggested they build it (or insist it be built) using Visual Studio's (there's even a free version) WebForms (aka ASPX pages) on IIS/.NET  That would enable him to more fully utilize his company's existing Windows Server license and CALs for the web pages, application run-time engine and authentication/authorization.  Please, please, please stop writing your own plumbing code!

One of out-of-the-gate visions for Essential Business Server was to expose many of these services to the midsize company's IT Administrator so he/she can consume them to better the business.  I think we've done a good job putting some of this functionality into the Administrator's hand but there's a lot more we can do (and will, in future releases).  I mentioned the extensibility story in a previous post and I'm excited to say there's more good news on that front.  I you'd like to push the EBS' envelop even further (please do!) then I invite you to use the Essential Business Server Software Developer's Kit (SDK) and extend the Administration Console.  Make great into outstanding!

*I fully expect the open source community to take advantage of Microsoft's Interoperability pledge and integrate their software work with Microsoft software.  If I worked for an open source company I'd make it a high priority for my future versions. 

How much do you love EBS?

This much?

Oliver Sommer does.  It's his company car!

Do you have x64 Server Hardware?

As I conduct research and go on customer visits with IT Administrators from midsize companies, one of the most interesting discoveries has been how little understanding their is around x64 processors.  For example, of the 82 customer visits we have conducted, the customers have averaged 11 servers but indicate they only have one x64 server (and they purchase 1.9 servers per year).  That math doesn't calculate.  NOTE: This isn't the IT Administrators fault, its the IT industry's issue!

I believe some of the confusion can be tied to "64-bit" in general.  For lots of people, 64-bit, in the microprocessor world, meant the Itanium brand that Intel created.  If you're not familiar with Itanium processors I'll give the 10K foot answer--they are super, high-end specifically meant to tackle the most calculation/memory-intensive workloads.  For better or for worse, Itanium also meant a limited set of drivers and Itanium only applications.  For example, Windows Server has an Itanium-specific edition.  If you have a massive database that can use a terabyte of RAM a Itanium-based server is your answer. 

So, what is x64?  Microsoft published what I think is good overview whitepaper on the topic and if you're a Wikipedia fan (who isn't?) take a look at their explanation.  x64 processors can run a 32-bit/x86 OS without requiring any changes.   This is what many customers do today.  That is because the processor folks (Intel and AMD) have changed all of their server-class processors from being x86 to x64 without a lot of fanfare.  Depending on who you ask, any server-class processor or servers running AMD or Intel processors sold/purchased in the last 18 - 24 months has a high probability of being x64 based. 

Why should you care?  Windows Essential Business Server will only run on x64 hardware.  Windows "7", the next version of the Windows Server operating system will only be x64 (and IA-64).  I don't think I'm going out on a limb when I say that within a couple of years all of Microsoft's server applications will be x64 based. RAM is (relatively) cheap and apps love RAM.  Heck, long term, I'm sure we'll look back and laugh about running 32-bit apps (remember 8-bit and 16-bit?).

What are the gotchas?  The biggest challenge that some people using x64 has been the lack of drivers (specifically print).   This issues become less and less with each passing day.  FWIW, I'm running Vista Enterprise x64 on my PC and I have very application compatibility problems (e.g. there's no OneNote x64 printer driver) and no driver issues.