OWA redirection for Exchange 2007 / 2003

OK this took me a little while to figure out, as there are conflicting reports on the web on how to do this properly. I will post the procedures here in general.

PROBLEM
Users don't want to type in https://webmail.domainname.com/owa; they just want to type in webmail.domain.com. You want them to use only SSL.


The best procedure is found here:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998359.aspx

Except instead of the annoying HTML code they include in the redirect page, just use this (remove leading spaces in tags!)

<>
< equiv="refresh" content="1; URL=https://webmail.servername.com/owa">
< /head>

Then webmail.domainname.com will redirect to https://webmail.domainname.com/owa. BUT what that article does not mention is that you have to go into the properties of the owa directory (or exchange if you're on 2003) and make sure to require SSL. By default this always seems to get disabled when you disable the requirement for the Default Web Site. Otherwise, uses who type in webmail.domainname.com/owa will be allowed to log in over HTTP.

Clear as mud???

Time Flies

It seems like I post every ten days or thereabouts. My original goal was to post things like mini-movie reviews, book reviews, and/or general rants. Of course, if I actually want people to read this, I need to pick a specialty topic (like - um - systems administration), and make sure to cater to that audience. Which is, I think, what I will shoot for. In the meantime, there will just be placeholders like this. :)

My Yahoo! Mail is out of beta

I log into my Yahoo Mail this morning and it's a nice blue color, instead of the cream/white color scheme. And, lo and behold, it no longer says Beta. I heard weeks ago on Windows Weekly that it was getting out of Beta and gradually being rolled out to users. Now I, an eight-year user of Yahoo Mail, (and maybe 9-month user of "beta") finally get the final version of "new" Yahoo! Mail.

And really, it's been looking like a finished product for a while now. The UI is frankly better than Gmail, which is saying a lot. The main reason for this is the keyboard shortcuts, which are strangely lacking in Gmail. If Gmail does have keyboard commands for doing common things, I haven't found what they are yet. The Gmail interface could borrow a lot from Google Reader, which offers a panoply of keyboard shortcuts that are delightful to use (especially for me, someone who really gets things done faster with a keyboard than with a mouse). Speaking of Google Reader, time for some blog-reading...

ATI drivers go open source

I have seriously been waiting for this moment for quite some time. I have loved ATI products since the AIW 8500 DV, and have mourned their lack of good *nix support - certainly never as good as nVidia's (relatively) good Linux drivers, not to mention the kludge that is installing a binary driver under Linux.

Weep no more: ATI is releasing their specifications to the hardware community in order to build open-source drivers. As Anandtech points out, there are a million caveats, such as, this will take a long time, there's no guarantee ATI will actually follow through with a full-featured specification release, we are starting from scratch since they can't/won't release any of their current proprietary code. But still - it's a watershed moment. It's one more thing that actually makes me want to start diving into GNU/Linux development. And there's always that faint possibility of the dream moment, when we actually have a choice of OS to use when running 3D apps.

Job offer

I received a job offer on Friday from the place where I reported having an interview earlier. It's a 1099 gig - title is "System Administrator." I'm definitely happy with the job, as it looks like I'll have pretty broad responsibility. However, I'm really looking for a "long-term stable" job - for instance, with a contractor/consultant firm - and as such, I am still keeping my fingers crossed for a certain other position. A position which I just completed Round 3 interview for.

And mainlanders were skeptical of the job market in Hawaii... :D For me, it seems to be better than the Chicago area. However, my friend pointed out yesterday that when you find the place that you're happy to put down roots, that makes it a lot easier to find things that you really like - house, partner, job.

I'm happy to start - probably tomorrow or Wednesday - but I will kind of miss my free time. :p

Job interview

So I had a job interview today. Actually it was just stopping by and saying hi to a (potential) future coworker, since the (our?) manager is at the client headquarters in Florida. I hope she got along with me pretty well, and she's telling her boss to hire me right now.

I'm actually holding my breath for another job though, at a managed services provider. They should be getting back to me soon - I hope sooner rather than later. I don't want to be in the position of turning down a good job or risking losing an even better one. I really don't want to accept one job and leave the next week.

Micky is sleeping after a rough day. We said we'd go to the beach after work, but it doesn't look like that's happening this afternoon. Oh well - more time for me dig into VBScript. :)

Time Travel and Speed of Light

I noticed on DailyTech a few weeks ago that some German scientists at the University of Koblenz claim to have made photons to exceed the speed of light through "quantum tunneling."
http://arxiv.org/abs/0708.0681

woohoo. I predict the second law of thermodynamics is next. hehe

you know I was thinking today, it would be really cool if the speed of light actually had been exceeded. then maybe within my lifetime i could get an ftl drive on my car - for the ultimate soup-up. then i could drive backward in time! that made me remember something i had read on the internet earlier which proves that time travel must exist - the delorean is going back into production!