On switching languages: things that make you go hmm.

When you switch languages a couple of times a day, you begin
to confuse some syntax and notice differences between the languages. In
one week: get basketball tournament
application working again. (PHP) Get Java app connected to Derby open-source database for my Java
class (handed in to my professor before class meets, but implemented in a
class). Get VB (6, not .net) apps
working for Decision Support Systems class (targeting zip codes) and Databases
class (rental car system). Get VBscript flight-risk scoring system
working. While Visual Basic and VB Script are close, they’re not the same. You
can dim intX as int in VB, but you can only dim intX in VB Script.  (The again, my server doesn’t even let me do option
explicit: The specified 'option
explicit ' option is unknown or invalid.)

And while you can do a Adodc.recordset.recordsize in VB6,
Java (1.5) has no resultSet.recordsize. So when I do a query in VB using ADO, I know how many
records I have; but in Java, I have to do while(recordset.next()) { recount++}
(source).
So my obsolete version of VB knows how many records are in my set, but the
latest version of Java does not. I’m sure there’s a reason for this, I just
don’t know what it is. I haven’t figured out if there’s a recordset size()
function/method in PHP yet. I wonder if Ruby on Rails has one available – I’d
check but the RoR API documentation
isn’t searchable.

The Quest for 64-Bit Compatibility

All I want to do is build a completely 64-bit AMD dual-core box.

Oh, the many 64-bit options and the lack of details. You can buy a 64-bit box, but are the storage and network drivers 64-bit? Does my 64-bit PCI storage controller have 64-bit drivers? For Vista CTP 64-bit? When Solaris was the only 64-bit game in town (available to me anyway) I could get answers. Now that everyone is making motherboards that support Intel and AMD 64-bit processors, it gets much harder to track down answers

Hypothetical: Today, you need to buy a server to run Exchange 2003 Sp2 on W2k3 R2. You want to make sure it will run Exchange 12 with no bottlenecks that will hurt performance, like a 32-bit storage driver. What do you buy? Microsoft has tips for the folks writing drivers. Where’s the 64-bit hardware qualification list? Why is it easier to find Sun servers that meet Microsoft’s 64-bit HQL? This is close. But are all the drivers 64-bit? Vista? ATI has Vista drivers available.

Exchange 12 Beta Random Notes

On the install, the Exchange installer didn't ask me to run ForestPrep
or ADPrep -- it just tweaked AD during the process with my credentials.

There are also a couple of neat tool shortcuts inside Exchange System
Manager. At the bottom of the tree part of the MMC are links to
Exchange Best Practices Analyzer (installed automatically), which
auto-updates as soon as it is launched. The first time I ran it, I got
a squawk about having no WINS server. I run a brand-new Windows Server
2003 Domain at the W2K3 functional level (on a separate box), have DNS
working great (even replicating to BIND 9.3.1), but Exchange 12 still
wants to see WINS. This makes me think that WINS may not be going away
in my lifetime.

The next shortcut in the toolbox is to PerfMon, (as long as I can run
it with “perfmon” I won’t call it “System Monitor” with a nice default
set of SMTP send and receive stats, Mapi.net and IS RPC hits, total
memory pages, and total processor time.

The final toolbox shortcut is Exchange queues, which saves time from
drilling down to find the SMTP/IMAP/whatever server you’re looking for
and hitting F5 a bunch of times. You get there faster, but you still
need to hit F5 for faster updates.

Also: Exchange 12 and SharePoint Services don’t seem to get along.
Exchange 12 and SQL 2005 share the same box fine so far, and SharePoint
installs and extends sites fine, but when it comes time to create a
site, it chokes, using the web-based administrator and stsadmin.exe.
Thus I may be installing IIS and SharePoint services on my Domain
Controller.

Even in my home lab, I hate compromises.

Exchange 12 OWA looks to be a big hit.

The other day I logged into my Exchange 12 Beta OWA from a campus lab here at GWU. (It comes with its own, untrusted certificate for SSL: "Exchange Edge Certificate.") I had previously explored OWA options and went to the general settings and saw an appearance tab. I selected the "black" appearance and reloaded OWA. It is a hip-looking white type on black interface, except for the actual message window, which is black type on white.

One of my classmates, looking over my shoulder, said how much cooler it looked than his OWA, which looked the same as everyone else's OWA on E2k3.

It looks like there will be skins for Exchange 12 OWA and they will make users want you to upgrade to Exchange 12 ASAP. I just wish everything in the beta OWA was working like security and spelling, because my friends who have checked it out are now worried that OWA won't support it in the next version.

Microsoft Metaphors and SQL 2005

As Microsoft creates new versions of its business software it is creating new Metaphors. As I explained previously, Exchange Server 12 will no longer be just front-end back-end but client access, gateway, bridgehead, and mailbox storage. Microsoft SQL 2005 has changed, too. No more Enterprise Manager; and no, this doesn’t mean you’re going to have to learn all the options of dbcc. If you try to connect to SQL 2005 using Enterprise Manager, you get the error, To connect to this server, you must use SQL Server Management Studio or SQL Server Management Objects (SMO).. However, my old Query Analyzer works just fine. What has changed (among many things) is the management interface: SQL Server Management Studio.

SQL Server Management Studio looks a lot like Visual Studio.Net – instead of database administrators (boring), we’re now database developers providing solutions. (Does this mean we get paid more?) There’s a solution explorer in the Management Studio console. There’s a GUI drag-and-drop manager for creating backup jobs, index rebuilds, that makes working with SQL 2005 look better, or at least sexier-looking. After logging onto EM about a thousand times, change is good.

Also: SQL mail in 2005 no longer requires an Outlook profile. You can use just SMTP and even authenticate to it. I love being able to choose the context under which every last process runs.

More on the Exchange 12 Beta

The Exchange 12 Beta installation is simple and somewhat
elegant. It doesn’t ask you to install Forest Prep or Domain Prep – it just has
a step where it does it. You can configure your Exchange 12 server to perform
several functions: Gateway, Bridgehead, Client Access, Mailbox, and Unified
Messaging. Gateway is not compatible with the other functions, since it’s
supposed to operate outside the Exchange org, screening and securing your
messages. Thus the metaphors from current Exchange parlance have changed –
Front-End has become Client Access, for instance.

Once you’ve installed the beta, there are four items
installed under the Microsoft Exchange folder in the start menu:

1. Exchange
   Console Manager, which replaces the Exchange System Manager
2. Exchange
   Server 12 Help, the sole source of documentation, even documenting parts
   of the ECM that haven’t been implemented yet.
3. Exchange
   Queue Viewer, a really fast way to check your mail queues.
4. Exchange
   Management Shell: A DOS box in which you can enter commands to manage your
   Exchange 12 environment. If you’re not comfortable at the command line,
   don’t try the Beta, because there are many things you can’t configure any
   other way. On the other hand, it’s still simpler than trying to edit Sendmail’s
   config.cf directly.

<>The new Exchange is still missing a lot of the management we’ve
grown to love and hate in E2K and E2K3, such as mailbox management, graphic management
of connectors, and the like, but it has great potential. What I’d like to play
with is push wireless messaging to smartphones – there’s even a wireless device
manager panel in Exchange 12 OWA – but I don’t have a smartphone and don’t know
if Verizon Wireless can hook me up yet.

Exchange 12 Beta Install

Microsoft’s Exchange 12 Beta arrived in my TechNet pack, and I had a box on which to install it. Why not? The Beta supports 32-bit hardware; production versions will not, according to the release notes. Installation was only a minor pain. My prerequisites, dot.Net 2.0, IIS and ASP were installed, but Microsoft Management Console, version 3, was not. Fortunately, the installer GUI had a link to MMC 3.0, just not the right one. The one you want for Exchange 12 is MMC 3.0 Pre-Release (RC1 Refresh). It’s mo’ Beta.

First install: everything worked except OWA and SMTP, which was kind of a big deal. However, I had done several test configurations on ASP and created so many Application pools running under different contexts that I had probably messed it up totally, so I uninstalled Exchange 12 and IIS.

Second install: the “client access” server install returned an error. I uninstalled Exchange and deleted every registry key that had Exchange or it’s path in it.

Third install: no errors, OWA worked, I could connect from Outlook. I couldn’t yet send or receive mail, though, because I hadn’t configured any connectors. Looking into the new Bridgehead server role configuration on the Exchange Management Console, as it’s now called, I saw only a blank screen. The help file explains how to use it to configure inbound and outbound connectors, but there was nothing there. Back to the release notes. The EMC does not yet implement a GUI for configuring connectors, so I had to start entering commands on a line.

Which brings us to the new way of administering Exchange 12: the command line.

Next to the EMC in the start menu is something called the Exchange Management Shell. I had to look at the help and start learning the new command structure. Fortunately, the release notes mention that you might not want to use the example given in the help file that creates an open relay for all.

Here’s what a command looks like:

New-ReceiveConnector -Name Internet2 -Type FromInternet -Bindings:10.10.10.202:25 -AnonymousAllowed:true -AdvertisedDomain xxxx.net -RemoteIPRanges
0.0.0.0-255.255.255.255

Once you’ve done a few commands, you’ll get it. And when you want to tweak one item, you don’t have re-do the whole command. You can do just one in a command. So try the Beta of Exchange 12 if you like, just be
prepared to learn a new command language.

One other thing: I did use the EMC to move the Information Stores, which was really easy. It dismounted them automatically, moved them, and remounted automatically.