ExchangeGeek: June 2009

HTC Hero £399 from Expansys

Call me sad but I like this phone, possible even more than my WinMo HTC Touch HD, which also incidentally runs Android quit nicely if I choose.

I won’t bore with the specs, but it is a great all round package. BUY IT NOW

I’m weak, here are the some highlights:

Display: 3.2-inch TFT-LCD touch-sensitive screen with 320x480 HVGA resolution

Platform: Android™ - Touch-sensitive front panel buttons responding perfectly to your finger gestures when scrolling through contacts, browsing the web, and launching media

Network: Surf and download at broadband speed with HSPA internet connectivity

GPS: Integrated GPS antenna, Google Maps enhanced by the wide screen viewing platform

Camera: 5.0 megapixel colour camera with auto focus for quality stills and video

Connectivity: Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11 b/g), Bluetooth 2.0, Built-in 3.5 mm audio jack

Daniel
http://twitter.com/dannoakes

Technorati Tags: HTC,Hero,Android,Daniel Noakes

OWA redirect

Performing redirects to the /OWA directory is something most Exchange Admins have come across. Nicolas Blank covers it in his blog, Redirecting from / to /owa, perfectly.

Simple, create a text file called “default.asp” and place it in the virtual directory that is handled by webmail.domain.com and place the following code inside it. Just Remember to replace domain.com with your own domain name.

<html>
<head>

<meta http-equiv="REFRESH" content="0;url=https://webmail.domain.com/owa">

/head>
</html>

There can be problems using Meta REFRESH (see here), so with Safari and Firefox Premium OWA support in Exchange 2010 we should use JavaScript for the best experience.
We may also want to setup a HTTP to HTTPS redirect for those users who do not type “https://…”.

<html>
<head runat="server">
<title>Outlook Web Access</title>
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
function redirect()
{
    var URL;
    var Protocol;
    var Path;
    // this will be whatever is in the browser. If you need to change this then comment out relevant line below
    // Protocol = window.location.protocol + "//"
    // Protocol = "http://"
    Protocol = "https://"
    Path = window.location.hostname + window.location.pathname + "owa"
    window.location.href = Protocol + Path
}

</script>
</head>
<body onload="redirect()">
</body>
</html>

For best results set the root of the web site not to require SSL and all virtual directories (OWA, EWS, etc) to require SSL.

Daniel
twitter.com/dannoakes

Technorati Tags: OWA,JavaScript,Daniel Noakes,Exchange 2010,Exchange 2007

Geneva Single Sign On for the Cloud

I cam across this blog post (Geneva, Exchange Online) from the UC Three Amigos blog which has on of the best/simplest explanations of how Geneva works.

The extract below is ripped straight from their blog.

How does it work?

Technorati Tags: Geneva,Exchange,Daniel Noakes,cloud

1. User clicks link for service
2. User taken to Microsoft Services Connector for authentication
3. Connector validates credentials with Active Directory
4. Microsoft Service Connector issues a login token and redirects to the Microsoft Federation Gateway
5. Gateway validates token and transform claims
6. Federation issues service token a directs to the service
7. user accesses the service.