Dude, Where's My Table of Contents?!

A post I found on the Exchange Team Blog describing a phenomenon I encountered myself the last couple of weeks and I thought I would share.

"So, you're reading all sorts of good stuff in the Library in the Exchange TechCenter, when, all of a sudden, the Table of Contents in the left-hand pane disappears! Where the #*$! did it go? Calm down, and hit T on the keyboard. Whoa! It's back! Such a relief. But, hey, now you're thinking that all that extra space was kinda cool when the TOC was gone.you don't need no stinkin' TOC. What to do? That's right, just hit T! It's gone again! Hit T! It's back! Go forth and amaze your friends.

Check it out! http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa996058.aspx"

Source: http://msexchangeteam.com/default.aspx

Wim

FaceTime releases survey: The Collaborative Internet: Usage Trends, End User Attitudes and IT Impact

The results of our fourth annual survey conducted by third party, NewDiligence during September of this year are now in. The survey of more than 500 employees and IT managers tracks the growth of Web 2.0 and employee-initiated applications that contribute to the consumerisation of IT.

The results show not just that malware is costing enterprises US$125,000 a month, but that the disparity between the Web 2.0 applications that employees are using in the workplace – and the controls currently in play to ensure that they’re used safely.

The survey also revealed that fewer than half of IT managers could actively monitor and reproduce traffic from instant messaging (IM) communications if asked by corporate legal teams in the event of a lawsuit. In fact, 38 percent of IT managers said they have no such capabilities and only 13 percent said they could do it - but not in any practical time frame. This is in stark contrast to global legislation and regulation changes, which are now specifically calling for all available electronically stored information – not just email - to be discoverable.

Here are a few more highlights of the survey:

• Fewer than 40 percent of respondents report monitoring and managing applications such as P2P and only 25 percent say they are securing and monitoring Web 2.0 applications.
• 79% of employees use social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, You Tube) at work for business reasons and 51% access social media sites at least once per day.
• 73% of IT managers report at least one security incident as a result of Internet application usage; viruses, Trojans and worms (59%) are most common, followed by spyware (57%) for a close second.
• 37% of companies report an instance of non compliance with corporate or regulatory policy, while 27% report incidents of accidental or unintentional data leakage.
• Despite new legislation and regulation, such as the US Rules for Civil Procedure only 31 percent of enterprises store IM communications. One in four has copies of audio conferences (25%), while slightly fewer (20%) archive corporate Web conferences.

A full copy of the report can be acquired by completing the quick survey request form on the Facetime website.

Wim

VoiceCon 2008 Videos

On the VoiceCon website a number of videos are published about VoiceCon 2008 hosted by Amsterdam this year.

http://www.voicecon.eu/videos/#VCA-2008-1224165842

ESTOS Phonetools for Communicator 2007

I read a post from Dennis Lundtoft Thomsen in which he was talking about OCS Phonetools developed by Estos. This tool allows quick dialing to Communicator from any telephone number resource (number on a web page for instance).

The tool is free and works really good. Check it out on:

http://www.estos.com/produkte/eccg/index.htm#tools

Wim

OCS 2007 R2 Videos

In light of the OCS R2 public announcement, the OCS Technical Product Management team has recorded a series of videos with the latest additions to the product and the value those bring to the customers. The videos are posted at the TechNet Edge check these out.

Week #1:
“Office Communications Server 2007 R2 and the new Attendant Console ”
“ What’s New in Conferencing with Office Communications Server 2007 R2”
“What’s New in Office Communicator, Communicator Web Access, and Devices with Office Communications Server 2007 R2”

Yet to come:

Week #2:

“Group Chat and Office Communications Server 2007 R2”

Week #3:
“What’s New in Mobility and Anywhere Access with Office Communications Server 2007 R2”
“ What’s New in Administration and Management with Office Communications Server 2007 R2”

Source: http://communicationsserverteam.com/default.aspx

Microsoft SideSight

Something not directly connected to OCS or Exchange, but nice to know:

http://www.gearlog.com/2008/10/microsofts_sidesight_something.php

It looks like MS is planning to implement a surface computing alike interface on mobile and other small devices in the future.

Wim

More info on OCS R2 features

Jeff Schertz posted some more detailed info on the new R2 features on his blog:

http://blogs.pointbridge.com/Blogs/schertz_jeff/Pages/Post.aspx?_ID=43

Wim

Opening multiple Exchange Outlook Profile instances

Yesterday I encountered a post on a tool called ExtraOutlook. This tool will allow you to open multiple Outlook Exhange profiles in seperate Outlook instances at the same time! Check it out at

http://unifyandconquer.blogspot.com/

Wim

OCS 2007 R2 Features and Release Date Unveiled!!

After a lot of speculations, Microsoft finally unveiled the features and release date of their long awaited R2 release of OCS 2007 today at VoiceCon 2008 in Amsterdam.

The release date for R2 is set to 3 February 2009. The new features in this version are listed below:

• Dial-in audioconferencing. Office Communications Server 2007 R2 enables businesses to eliminate costly audioconferencing services with an on-premise audioconferencing bridge that is managed by IT as part of the overall communications infrastructure.
• Desktop sharing. This feature enables users to seamlessly share their desktop, initiate audio communications and collaborate with others outside the organization on PC, Macintosh or Linux platforms through a Web-based interface.
• Persistent group chat. This enables geographically dispersed teams to collaborate with each other by participating in topic-based discussions that persist over time. This application provides users with a list of all available chat rooms and topics, periodically archives discussions in an XML file format that meets compliance regulations, provides tools to search the entire history of discussion on a given topic, and offers filters and alerts to notify someone of new posts or topics on a particular topic.
• Attendant console and delegation!!!!!! This allows receptionists, team secretaries and others to manage calls and conferences on behalf of other users, set up workflows to route calls, and manage higher volumes of incoming communications through a software-based interface.
• Session Initiation Protocol trunking! This feature enables businesses to reduce costs by setting up a direct VoIP connection between an Internet telephony service provider and Office Communicator 2007 without requiring on-premise gateways.
• Response group!! A workflow design application manages incoming calls based on user-configured rules (e.g., round-robin, longest idle, simultaneous), providing a simple-to-use basic engine for call treatment, routing and queuing.
• Mobility and single-number reach. This extends Microsoft Office Communicator Mobile functionality to Nokia S40, Motorola RAZR, Blackberry and Windows Mobile platforms, allowing users to communicate using presence, IM and voice as an extension of their PBX from a unified client
  
  See the links below for more information.
  
  http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2008/oct08/10-14OCSR2PR.mspx
  
  http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/Features/2008/oct08/10-14OCSR2video.mspx
  
  Wim