Last year I was playing around with Google Custom Search, to try and improve the search functionality on amset.info.
While I was experimenting, I built custom search engines for the knowledgebase's of Microsoft, Symantec, McAfee, Palm, Apple, Adobe and a few others.
Rather than waste the work I had done, I put them in to some rough web code I use for basic web sites, registered a domain name and put it on its own virtual server on the same server that hosts amset.info and this site.
The link initially appeared in one place only, on this site. You will find it in the side bar. I have subsequently added it to my profile on Experts Exchange. It will most likely appear linked to from amset.info when I eventually get round to a design refresh for that site.
It will now appear in a third place, here: http://www.kbsearch.info/
If you look at the site you will see that it isn't the prettiest of code. It was built on some standard asp that I use if I need to throw together something very quickly. I use most of the asp as place holders for a real design to be done at a later date.
I did some basic meta tags, put in the Google Adsense code and left it at that.
Came as a bit of a surprise then to look at the logs for the web site a few weeks later to find that not only has Google indexed it, but it was for a time also at the top of the results (at least on Google UK) for a certain keyword - Symantec KB. It now seems to vary between 1 and 3.
If you believe some of the hype around the Search Engine Optimisation community (SEO) what has happened should not have happened. I should have had lots of links to the site, monitored my keyword density, done the research, crafted my meta tags, used the keywords in the title etc. I also shouldn't have the site name in the title.
I did none of the above. I have probably got lucky with what I did use, but it was just luck. I am not aware of any inbound links (except from here) and the pages are not optimised in any way.
I am not saying that SEO is a waste of time and money, just that it in this scenario it was not required to get the site in to the search engines in a good position.
For the third year in a row, I am expert of the year at Experts Exchange. I also answered the most questions during the year - 5798 - which is an average of just over 16 questions a day.
I also picked up most points from assists.
http://www.experts-exchange.com/expertAwards2008.jsp
In other Experts Exchange news, I have decided to take a break from it for a while, so that I can concentrate on my business. You will still see me posting on other sites, but the traffic through EE is so high that it was taking up too much of my time to keep on top of it. I haven't posted in a new question on that site since Jan 1st, but I am still getting questions that I worked on before coming through, and have earned 250,000 points without even trying.
As you are probably aware, Exchange 2007 Service Pack 1 was released at the end of November. However, even though this was in beta for quite some time, a few little things did slip past the quality control.
Below is a screenshot from Exchange 2007 Service Pack 1 as originally released. The bug exists in both the 64 bit and the 32 bit trial. Exchange Management Console, Organisation Configuration, Hub Transport. Click on the tab Remote Domains. Right click on the Default and choose Properties. The tab should be labbed "Message Format" - not "Format of original message sent as attachment to journal report:"
Not the only mistake on this window, further down, "Display sender's name on messages" has a formatting error as well.
Neither error appear to affect functionlity, but makes a different bug to report to Microsoft!
Having installed Exchange 2007 SP1 on to a couple of systems in my home lab, a couple of things have caught me out, which I thought may be beneficial to share.
Remove language packs from UM
The first was that you need to remove any additional language packs from the server. I had the UK English pack installed. This is the TechNet article on how to remove a language pack.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124004.aspx
However I found that the command listed in that article didn't work. Instead I used a command prompt in the root of my local copy of the DVD (I copied the files off the original DVD to the machine so that they were always available) and then ran the following command:
Setup.com /RemoveUmLanguagePack:EN-GB
The language pack then removed for me successfully.
Reboot Pending Prompt
If you had installed something that asked for a reboot and had not rebooted then the service pack will not install. You will have to reboot and then try again. Fortunately the service pack itself does not seem to ask for a reboot.
You do not have to remove the rollups
If you have been keeping the server up to date and have the rollups installed, then you may recall that if you downloaded them manually you had to remove the previous rollups before installing the new ones. With the service pack you do not have to do that. This service pack effectively removes the installation files and then replaces them. The download is the complete Exchange 2007 installation set. After the installation of the service pack is complete the rollups have gone from the add/remove programs list.
Receive Connector Configuration
This last one caught me out and seems to be catching many others.
If you have modified the receive connector FQDN away from the default then it will stop the installation of the service pack. However this is NOT picked up during the initial check of the server at the beginning, but midway through. The service pack install stops and you are left with a server that is not running 100%. If you do forget to change it then the service pack will pick up from where it has started.
The receive connector should be set to either the server's FQDN, Netbios name or blank.
So for a server called EXCH-Server this would be exch-server.domain.local, exch-server or blank.
Why would you change this? When you telnet to the server it is the receive connector that is answering the call and you may want to change it so that the public name of the server is answered instead.
Updated to include link to SP1 release notes.
The eagerly awaited service pack 1 for Exchange 2007 has been released.
In a change from service packs for earlier versions of Exchange, you can install Exchange 2007 fresh from this download - therefore the download files are quite big.
Available in both 64 bit and 32 bit, although remember that 32 bit is not supported for production use. Evaluation only.
From the download page:
Overview
Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1) has been designed specifically to help meet the challenges of any business and the needs of all the different groups with a stake in the messaging system. Exchange Server 2007 SP1 is a mission-critical communications tool that enables employees to be more productive and access their information anywhere and anytime while providing a messaging system that enables rich, efficient access to e-mail, calendar items, voice mail, and contacts. For the administrator, Exchange Server 2007 SP1 provides advanced protection options against e-mail security threats, such as spam and viruses, as well as the tools to help manage internal compliance and high availability needs.
In Exchange Server 2007 SP1, several new features and improvements will extend the Anywhere Access capabilities of Exchange Server 2007 to help make employees more productive on whatever device they’re using, provide additional Operational Efficiency tools for administrators seeking a streamlined management and deployment experience, and enable advanced Built-in Protection for more robust high availability and compliance scenarios.
Improvements in Exchange Server 2007 SP1 include:
Anywhere Access
- Integrated Exchange Unified Messaging functionality with Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 and Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007.
- Outlook Web Access additions, including public folder access, S/MIME support, personal distribution lists, and mailbox rules editor.
- Webready document viewer supports Microsoft Office 2007 documents in addition to Microsoft Office 2003 documents.
- Extended language support in Outlook Web Access with Arabic and Korean spell checking.
Operational Efficiency
- Support for Windows Server 2008 deployments, including benefits in flexible clustering, native virtualization, advanced networking, and simplified management.
- Additional tools in the Exchange Management Console, including public folder management and configuration options for clustering and POP/IMAP access.
- Improvements to the Exchange Management Shell syntax and import-export PST in the move-mailbox command.
- Wider variety of web services for application development, including public folder access, delegate management, and folder level permissions.
Built-in Protection
- Addition of Standby Continuous Replication (SCR) for site resilient high availability deployments.
- Extended Exchange ActiveSync policies for mobile policy enforcement.
- Information rights management pre-licensing by the Hub Transport role.
- Secure Real Time Protocol (SRTP) support in the Unified Messaging role.
- Support for IPv6 when using Windows Server 2008.
This is the link to download it. However you need to register, using a Microsoft Live ID:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=44C66AD6-F185-4A1D-A9AB-473C1188954C&displaylang=en
UPDATE:
At the time of writing, the link to the release notes takes you to the RTM release notes, not the SP1 release notes. To see the SP1 release notes (gives you something to read while it downloads) go here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=5770BD59-376E-42EC-B940-BE6225CD97FF&displaylang=en
