Upgrading Windows Home Server
Its been a week since I have finished placement and I decided as well as preparing for univeristy which if I am honest has gone as far as checking if I have any days off, thought I would take on a not so small project. Upgrading my Windows Home Server! Its getting on for 3 years old and the hardware is much older and well due for an upgrade.
Its not cost very much so far as upgrading my main desktop a couple of months back. I have a spare motherboard and memory as well as a power supply. The only missing pieces are a CPU and case. I am using my desktop CPU and have a new faster one on order for my main PC. The case, well I have purchased a new one as well as a new hardware as I’d prefer not to use my old drives that are probably starting to degrade.
The case I have got for it is a Fractal Design Define R2. I had seen it a while ago and was impressed with its 7 internal drive bays and sound proofing features. First impressions I see these are actually working and its current near silient sitting on my worktop while its copying data across from the old home server.
Exchange 2010 – Automated Signature
I’ve been messing around with my Exchange2010 server today and found a solution to automating signatures; for example adding a disclaimer message or as I’ve seen in some work emails adding marketing messages to the bottom of emails.
In Exchange2010 you can do all this via a Transport Rule, this is new as you can’t do this on Exchange2007 or Exchange2003 as I have seen in a SBS 2003 set-up I manage.
To do this..
1. Open Exchange Management Console and navigate to “Organisation Configuration” > “Hub Transports” > “Transport Rules” > “New Transport Rule” .
2. Give the new rule a name and a commit and click next.
3. Select the condition “send to users that are inside or outside the organisation, or partners” and click next
3.1 May be worth to later create two rules one for sending to inside the organisation and another for sending to outside the organisation.
4. Select the action “Append disclaimer text and fallback to action if unable to apply”.
5. click the blue text “disclaimer text” and edit the field. click next and create the rule.
Test this by sending an email to someone other another address.
You can use the following macros for inserting user specific information to the signature..
Display Name: %DisplayName%%
First Name: %%FirstName%%
Last Name: %%LastName%%
Business Phone: %%Phone%%
Title: %%Title%%
As well as inserting Word formatted HTML..
This all seems a little pointless on my Exchange installation as I only have a few users but I imagine this could save quite a few pennies on storage as it stops the signature from being appended on Outlook and then saved in the sent folder, this frees up space in the mailbox.
I suppose it also centralises management of signatures for when you are adding disclaimer or marketing messages
Last Week On Placement
Its my last week on my placement and well I’ve mixed feelings about leaving. I’m excited as well I quite like the idea of going back to University but then I’m a little nervous about leaving as well doing a 9 till 5 job had its up sides.
In terms of university I heard my option module has been cancelled, lack of a student interest apparently, I would not be surprised if I was the only one that signed up. I have now decided after not much thought as well a lot of modules did 1) Not appeal to me, 2) I am already doing and finally 3) I could not do as I did not do the required level 2 modules, chosen to do Information Systems Engineering in Industry. This however has just put a dent in my timetable and I no longer appear to get Fridays off in the first semester, shame I know but then I’ll be at university and be able to study during the gaps between lectures.. I say that but if it is anything like last year the Library staff seem to enjoy baking and working in the Library with the heating on not only in the winter but the summer to is really off putting, its not even warm, its just hot in there but anyway.
I’ve not had much final thoughts on my final year project but I think now that I have the forthcoming weeks off I’ll start to press on with that, I can imagine doing something with IPV6 but I’m getting put off by that idea if every other person is doing it to..
Placement has been fun although in the last month my role has been to step aside and be more of a supervisor to ensure my replacement is up to speed and knows what he is doing so I have not been as hands on as I like to be.
Lately I have been brushing up on my C# skills ready for September and have created a few applications, I may release one or two so stay tuned for that if your using XBMC…
