New major releases being one of them.

Usually.

Notable exceptions include any steaming piles of shit from IBM Lotus or SCT Sungard.

One of those problems we don’t have to worry about anymore.  The other…well, I wouldn’t hold my breath on it.

But for those software releases that ARE desirable, it is often the euphoric high of the responsible System Administrator that gets them through the rough points of a possibly frustrating or boring job.  It gives them something positive to look forward to, to dream about, to plan for.

Enter many a Microsoft Exchange Administrator.  These individuals have, since the announcement of features for Exchange Server 2010, soaked many a work uniform with their drool as they read over the features of this impressive upcoming release.

What’s better than reading about the features?

Using the features.

That’s right, boys and girls….Exchange Server 2010 has entered “Release Candidate” status.

“But Chris…they released that on August 18…you’re TOTALLY BEHIND!”

First of all, they released the announcement on August 18.  The download link itself was actually broken.  If you follow my Twitter feed you’ll see part of a little back-and-forth I had with a Microsoft guy when he responded to my tweet about it.  At any rate, they fixed the download the next day.

Now that you’re all caught up on that drama, I’ll just say I’ve got it running on a VM in my test domain and it is every bit as awesome as the featureset claims.  I wanted to be able to come here and actually verify that before blogging it.

All that to say, though, I have to be completely honest…there is really not much added to what an end-user would notice.  I mean, they still use Outlook, Entourage, or [insert some random totally crap email client here]…so they won’t see a difference there.  Basically, if they’re not an Exchange Admin, they probably definitely aren’t going to get super super excited about the biggest features of this release because they simply won’t see them.

They WILL, however, see a difference if they use Outlook Web Access.   Oh my God will they see a difference.

Hotmail users (are there any of those left?) rejoice!!  Outlook Web Access (OWA) 2010 looks exactly like the new Live/Hotmail.  But that’s nothing compared to this news: it looks exactly like the new Live/Hotmail for everyone.

I’d like to repeat that: Everyone.

Windows or Mac, IE or Firefox, Safari or Opera.

Even Linux.

If you’ve got a current browser, you’ve got a current OWA.  No more of this “OWA Light” featureless BS that seems to only serve the purpose of pissing me off.

While I do have the awesome ability to upgrade an Exchange 2007 infrastructure in pieces (and do plan on doing it that way), I sadly have to wait until they release Service Pack 2 for the version of Exchange being run now before starting to introduce 2010 into the production environment.  It should be out any day, but if I had to put money on it I would say they release the final version of Exchange 2010 and Exchange 2007 SP2 around the same time, which will be in a month or two.

The idea would be, though, to put up a new OWA server and get people (read: management units and training peeps) used to the idea before upgrading the rest of the existing infrastructure.

Even better yet would be to use the upgrade as an opportunity to virtualize those lightweight servers.

Oh, the possibilities….

Nobody wants to see that.  Trust me.

What I want to talk to you about today is another kind of “Little Bit”.

Have you ever wanted to send a link to a web address to a friend, but hated typing it all out or dealing with trying to relate it over the phone?  FEAR NOT!  For now we have URL Shortening services!!

By utilizing a massive database and 301 redirects, a number of websites have begun to offer the service of URL shortening…essentially:

http://taking.your.omg.long.ass.link.com/and-changing-it/into/something.that.is-a-little.more.readable.html

and changing it into:

http://bit.ly/1pUh0z

Admit it, you clicked the first one to see if it actually worked.  LOL.

Now, the site that I use is called bit.ly.  The reason I like this one over others such as tinyurl is because of the awesome features that bit.ly gives you when you register an account (it’s free).  Bit.ly allows you to track the short links you have created with their site, how many times they were clicked, how many times they were redistributed and clicked, and will even give you a breakdown of where the clickers came from (ala Referrers).

Like I said, amazing site, all free, and very useful if you deal with websites and webpages with URLs that are entirely too long to remember, or you just want to have access to some awesome stats on the links you distribute…go give bit.ly a try!

Well fear not!  There is a cure.  And that cure is in the awesomeness that is Gmail.

Follow these simple steps:

1. Create a new email address.  Doesn’t have to be a Gmail address, but come on…its free and arguably one of the best free webmail services on the planet.  These steps assume that you’ve created a Gmail address.
2. Logout of your shiny new Gmail address and login to your main Gmail account.
3. Click Settings->Accounts (tab).  One of your options will be Send mail as. In that area, click the link that says “Add another email address you own“.  Input the email address you just created when prompted.
4. Logout of your main Gmail account and into the new one.  You will find a confirmation email there, effectively asking your permission to let your primary account send email as you.  Click the link inside it to confirm you want to do this.
5. Go into Settings->Forwarding POP/IMAP (tab).  You will see a “Forward a copy of incoming mail to” option.  Input your primary address into this box, then choose what you want to do with the original copy that went to your secondary account.  Since it’s Gmail with oodles upon oodles of space, I leave the Gmail copy alone.  For those cost-conscious few out there, you can choose Delete it to keep your secondary account clean.
6. Logout of your secondary account and back into your primary.  Go into your Labels section (found on the left) and click Edit Labels, then click Create a new label.  Type in the name of whatever you want the label to be called (duh).  Personally, I make the label name have something to do with what the label is for, like if my 2nd email account was “techthings@gmail.com”, I would make a label called techthings.  I know, its a difficult concept…but I’m here for you.
7. Now use the Filters menu (Settings->Filters) to create a new Filter.  Tell it to filter all email TO [your_second_email_address], and Apply the label [whatever_you_called_the_label].  Some people tell it to “Skip the Inbox and Archive it”, that’s up to your own preference.  Personally, I prefer things in my Inbox or I never read them….I’m ADD like that.

And that’s really about it.  Yeah, it looks like a lot of steps, but it’s really not that hard to setup.  Whenever you to go to Compose a new email, you will have a drop down for the accounts you are setup to send as, so you can pick and choose on the fly…and all your emails from other accounts will show up under the label you chose.  Works GREAT for me!