Technically Speaking... favicon.ico 2007-02-01T18:56:10.7339012-05:00 Robert M. Hoover http://giveuntocaesar.com/DasBlog/ DasBlog Microsoft Antigen for Exchange http://giveuntocaesar.com/DasBlog/PermaLink,guid,bbdcc74f-2355-41dc-a0aa-d9cf5cc4c2ee.aspx 2006-10-17T09:07:23.4910000-04:00 2007-02-01T18:56:10.7339012-05:00

I have been running my own Windows Server for over 5 years now, and one of the things I've always been running on it was Exchange Server. I've always loved the ability to have full Exchange functionality for my desktop, laptop, and mobile device keeping them all in sync and having e-mail as it arrives at the server. The one thing that always has proved a pain was Exchange's lack of a comprehensive SPAM filtering feature. Sure you could always manually plug in domains and addresses into its filtering, or in Exchange 2003 SP2 you could enable Intelligent Message Filtering on level of 1 to 8. Enabling Intelligent Message Filtering was practically a useless endeavor, especially if you've been added to various SPAM lists as you would either not get mail you expected, or SPAM would get through like water in a damn with a substantial leak.


In my predicament I decided to try Microsoft Antigen for Exchange, which is part of the Forefront Security Initiative at Microsoft for server security. I was at first somewhat skeptical, given the solutions that Microsoft had provided me before for "stopping" SPAM, but as soon as I installed it I really began to notice the difference immediately. All unwanted email was being stopped by Antigen service and my inbox was amazingly clean. Ever being the skeptic and thinking it may have been eating my good mail too, I decided to poke around the Antigen Administrator and found all of the purged or marked mail under the Quarantine section of the Report tab. Amazing! Not one mail in the quarantine list was actually meant for me. In addition to the elation I was feeling that I had a solution that actually worked, I was also somewhat impressed by the fact that Antigen uses 5 virus scanning engines from major manufacturers such as Computer Associates. Because I'm not really concerned with performance on a server running only a few mailboxes, I have the bias set for Maximum Certainty which processes all emails through all 5 of the virus scanning engines.

Overall I would have to say that Microsoft Antigen for Exchange is a great product for anyone that operates an Exchange Server. I would actually like to see it bundled in future editions of Microsoft Small Business Server, as I feel that the Small Business Market is completely under-served by Microsoft in SPAM and Virus protection in an area where they market SBS an all-in-one solution.

Microsoft Directband Technology http://giveuntocaesar.com/DasBlog/PermaLink,guid,c8e019cc-dc0f-479c-afe2-4b8bc1662267.aspx 2006-09-28T11:48:40.4470000-04:00 2006-09-28T11:52:41.4477500-04:00

I recently purchased a Fossil Abacus 2006; the newest line of watches based on the Microsoft Smart Personal Objects Technology (SPOT) that allows people to integrate technology into their daily lives with the intention of making organization easier and efficient.

I must say that I do have mixed feelings about the technology after actually using it for the past few days. The watch itself is quite beautiful, and I really like the feel of a bulky watch, I like the substantial feel on my wrist letting me know that its there. I also like the backlighting feature which is reminiscent of the backlighting technology used on monochrome Palm devices in the late 90's (I had the same backlighting on a Palm i705 way back then). What I do not like about the watch is that it is not a widely used or implemented technology, and therefore has definite limitations such only being able to receive a wireless signal in large cities. I also find that the signal is somewhat sporadic, and the watch will only receive data when I am wearing it as the antenna on the inside of the stainless steel bracelet seems to use my body as an amplified antenna for picking up the signal. I had the watch for a few hours before it even found a time signal to set the time, and it took several before it even picked up Microsoft's MSN Direct Signal  to receive the News, Stocks, Weather, and Movie info I had subscribed to. I would have been a bit more satisfied had they at least included something telling me this may happen, then I would not immediately think that the watches wireless radio was malfunctioning in some way. The battery in this model seems to be really great, one day of use only take about 10% of the battery life, and the watch has a nice magnetic charger similar to the MagSafe power adapter on Apple's new MacBook line. I enjoy wearing the watch as it is nice to have time, weather, and movie information all at a glance, but even with the upgrades this model has over previous SPOT watches, I doubt that this will be a technology that will ever catch on for the general consumer. The only way I can conceive that Microsoft could save and expand this technology would be if they were to reintroduce it to the market using public Wi-Fi connections (similar to the Nabatzag Wifi Smart Rabbit) rather than the limited, oneway MSN Directband technology.