Archives 2006

Well, sort of. They released it and then pulled it.

Palm/Treo has pulled the latest update for the Treo 700W’s from their website
http://www.palm.com/us/support/downloads/treo700wupdater/verizon.html

With the message –
Temporarily unavailable.
We anticipate that the Treo 700w updater will be available at a later date. If you have already installed the updater, please disregard this message

If however, you are one of the daring and wish to perform the update, go to the following site (which bypasses their warning unavailable message)
http://ws.palm.com/SupportDownload/app?service=external/Home&sp=1

Installation instructions are available here:
http://www.palm.com/us/support/downloads/treo700wupdater/verizon.html

The breakdown of what changes are available here:
http://mytreo.net/archives/2006/04/palm_treo_700w_updater_110_available.php
* Includes Microsoft’s Messaging and Security Feature Pack (MSFP) with Direct Push Technology for automatic wireless synchronization of email, calendar, contacts and, now, tasks (learn more)
* Enhances email capabilities for more support of push email solutions, such as WirelessSync and GoodLink, and of synchronization capabilities, such as the ability to maintain an “always on” data connection after POP or IMAP email synchronization and the ability to auto-synchronize all email accounts based on user setting.
* Updated memory management
* Pictures and Videos enhancements
* New Wireless Manager provides an updated interface for turning wireless radios on and off on your 700w smartphone
The update to the phone seems to go smoothly, and the deletion of Temp files doesn’t take nearly as long as ~30 minutes like they suggest.

In either event, it’s a definitely useful upgrade and I’ll mention shortly just how you can go about specifically utilizing it with Exchange SP2+MSFP Functionality.

~Christopher Kusek

I’m a particular fan of efficiency and all the joys brought upon by it. Some particular areas of Efficiency interest have been in good light which is not only bright, low cost for power and healthy vs SAD, it’s also good at maintaining attention and awareness. I’ll actually do my whole writeup on 6500K and why it rocks the house at some point in the future, but for now.. let us discuss… POWER!

Someone recently informed me of this little trinket, very powerful and cool indeed and I’m sure will greatly benefit any household. – Kill A Watt!

http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/7657/

The Kill-A-Watt allows you to connect your appliances and assess how efficient they are. A large LCD display counts consumption by the Kilowatt-hour, just like utility companies. You can figure out your electrical expenses by the hour, day, week, month, even an entire year. Monitor the quality of your power by displaying Voltage, Line Frequency, and Power Factor.

This thing is so absolutely cool, I’m ordering one rightnow as I write this! I’m sure the uses will be endless.. though for the moment, I’ll start with one, and decide if I’ll have a need to try to implement more into the household. This will certainly help in any event you have interest in trending or forecasting whether some particular appliances are useful or completely useless and are eating you out of house and home!

I’ll let you know how I feel about it after I use it for a while!

Christopher Kusek

Have you ever taken a Microsoft Exam, and failed and feh, now you need to spend more money to take it! Now with this. You can take it, and if you fail you get a free second chance to take it! If you go to the site listed at the bottom, it’ll register you for this or that and give you a coupon code to use when you register at Prometric or Vue. Now you can register to get the information… or not, and just use the Codes. This expires by June 30th, so if I had to take any random tests (Which I do) I’ll be doing it in this time frame!

Those Coupon codes are:

MCP Exams: 24FREE
Microsoft Dynamic Exams: MBS2S

http://www.prometric.com
http://www.vue.com
http://www.microsoft.com/learning/mcp/offers/2ndchance/
~ Christopher Kusek

PS. If you’re going to be taking any Microsoft Exams (Or cisco, or whatever) Let me know, and perhaps I can help. I take and study for exams all the time, and find them considerably easy so I can break through the barriers of prevention. Let me know, and I just may be able to point you in the right direction to help guarantee your success!

IMPORTANT: These codes can be used if/when you fail an exam, you must CALL Prometric and give them the “24FREE” Code, and they will schedule your re-take free of charge. The number for Prometric is 800.755.EXAM (3926)

I talk to a lot of people at times during Exchange migrations, previous versions to more current versions. And one of the greatest misconceptions there has been, people thinking that the Outlook Client is dependant on their Office CAL’s.

Well, it does not.

So, here I am to set things straight once and for all (Or until licensing changes)
The Exchange Server 2003 user CAL is required for each user gaining access to the server and entitles access rights to both editions of Exchange Server. Each Exchange Server 2003 CAL also includes Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 or Microsoft Entourage 2004 for Mac and permits access from Microsoft Office Outlook Web Access, Outlook Mobile Access, Exchange ActiveSync, or any standard Internet-messaging client.

Pricing and Licensing for Enterprise Organizations (For Exchange)
http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/howtobuy/enterprise.mspx

~ Christopher Kusek

This inability is due to some email domains adoption of the RDNS (Reverse DNS) checking. The belief is, if you have a valid reverse DNs (Read: Valid = Any reverse DNS entry usually), then you are a “Valid Domain” to handle email from. Until the actual adoption of validated authentication which may come in the future, for the time being you can work around this inability to mail by having a valid PTR!

How this works is, the machine which will actually connect to the Internet and send email needs to have a valid PTR assigned to its IP address.
Below are steps detailed how to check that.

First, let’s discover the MX record for your domain, and the PTR record for your sending email server.

(Using Nslookup, we’ll check the details for hotmail.com)

We’re launching nslookup and looking at the details of the domain hotmail.com
C:\> nslookup
Default Server: vnsc-bak.sys.gtei.net
Address: 4.2.2.2

>set type=mxSetting the type to MX will show us the Mail Exchanger records for the domain
>hotmail.comEnter a domain here, and it will display our Mail Exchangers
Server: vnsc-bak.sys.gtei.net
Address: 4.2.2.2
Non-authoritative answer:
hotmail.com MX preference = 5, mail exchanger = mx4.hotmail.com
hotmail.com MX preference = 5, mail exchanger = mx1.hotmail.com
hotmail.com MX preference = 5, mail exchanger = mx2.hotmail.com
hotmail.com MX preference = 5, mail exchanger = mx3.hotmail.com
>

Now that we know the MX entries for inbound, we’ll check if they have a valid PTR

> set type=aThis will allow us to see the IP address assigned to the MX entries
> mx1.hotmail.com

Server: vnsc-bak.sys.gtei.net
Address: 4.2.2.2

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: mx1.hotmail.com
Addresses: 64.4.50.50, 65.54.244.8, 65.54.244.136, 65.54.245.8

> set type=ptrNow we’ll check if they have a valid PTR
> 64.4.50.50The IP Address of the Mail Exchanger is specified here

Server: vnsc-bak.sys.gtei.net
Address: 4.2.2.2

Non-authoritative answer:
50.50.4.64.in-addr.arpa name = mail.hotmail.com
50.50.4.64.in-addr.arpa name = mc1-reserved.bay6.hotmail.com

So, according to this, they have a valid record
If you received something similar to
*** vnsc-bak.sys.gtei.net can’t find 1.1.1.1.in-addr.arpa.: Non-existent domain
Then you do not have a valid PTR setup
If you’ve followed these steps and checked the PTR for the inbound mail receiver, now you should check the outbound.
Sometimes Inbound does not match the Outbound, so visit the following site from your mail server and you can check your IP address.

From your outbound mail server (The Mail server itself or an SMTP scanning/relayer) visit the following website:
www.pkguild.com/ip (There is also a link off the main site here – “Click here for your IP Address”)

And your results should look like this:

C:\>nslookup
Default Server: vnsc-bak.sys.gtei.net
Address: 4.2.2.2

> set type=mx
> pkguild.com
Server: vnsc-bak.sys.gtei.net
Address: 4.2.2.2

Non-authoritative answer:
pkguild.com MX preference = 0, mail exchanger = pkguild.com

pkguild.com internet address = 70.103.189.81
> set type=ptr
> 70.103.189.81
Server: vnsc-bak.sys.gtei.net
Address: 4.2.2.2

Non-authoritative answer:
81.189.103.70.in-addr.arpa name = box81.bluehost.com
>

At this point, with a valid PTR – You can check to see if you can send mail by hand to these domains.

C:\> telnet mx1.hotmail.com

220 bay0-mc5-f9.bay0.hotmail.com. Mon, 6 Feb 2006 09:35:02 -0800
helo peters.com
Enter helo domain.com where domain.com is the site you claim to be from
250 bay0-mc5-f9.bay0.hotmail.com (3.1.0.18) Hello [216.130.119.48]
mail from: <Christopher.Kusek@Pkguild.com>
Enter mail from: <user@domain.com> this will dictate who it comes from.
250 Christopher.Kusek@Pkguild.com.Sender OK
rcpt to: <christopher.kusek@hotmail.com>
Enter rcpt to: <user@hotmail.com> this will be the recipient of the message.
250 christopher.kusek@hotmail.com
data
Enter data – this allows you to start putting input of content in the message.
Test test mc test
Enter some kind of data.
.
Put a . and it commits the email and sends it.
354 Start mail input; end with .
250 <BAY0-MC5-F9gDznmG3d00498dc8@bay0-mc5-f9.bay0.hotmail.com> Queued mail for delivery
A simplified test of it which can be pasted into a telnet window are like this.
(After you have initiated your telnet)
helo domain.com
mail from: user@domain.com
rcpt to: user@domainIamConnectedto.com
data
test
.

Often times, you may also encounter an issue where Exchange is unable to deliver mail to some domains or reports errors on your server. This can happen when you have EDNS enabled on Windows 2003 DNS servers (Enabled by default)
To disable EDNS, you must first install the dnscmd.exe command-line tool from the Windows 2003 CD-ROM’s Support Tools. (\Support\i386\Suptools.msi)
From a command prompt type

dnscmd /config /enableednsprobes 0

This will then disable EDNS (You may need to restart the DNS Services on the 2003 DNS Server for it to take effect)

An external DNS query may cause an error message in Windows Server 2003
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/828731/en-us