Chris Pirillo » exchange

Free Exchange Monitor Tool

Chris — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 07:06:47 +0000

Free Exchange Monitor Tool is a post from Chris Pirillo

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I have mentioned many times that I have an Exchange account that is hosted through Rackspace. I’m very happy with it. There are times, however, when Exchange isn’t too happy and I don’t have the right troubleshooting tools. Thankfully, the people over at SolarWinds live for making network tools to help people like me. They have released a new piece of freeware that is a desktop dashboard that continuously monitors Microsoft Exchange servers to deliver real-time insight into Exchange services, mail queue sizes, and host server health.

Exchange Monitor knows when there’s a problem. It can:

Quickly identify and troubleshoot Exchange server problems.
Stay on top of growing mail queues that can indicate bigger issues.
Leverage out-of-the-box settings to start monitoring Exchange immediately.
Spot performance issues with built-in red, yellow, and green health indicators.
Monitor critical server health stats, including disk space, CPU utilization, and memory utilization.

Josh Stephens from SolarWinds has joined me for this video. The company was founded to help Network Engineers and System Admins, by giving them tools that will help them do their everyday jobs. The reasoning behind the creation of Exchange Monitor is that there just aren’t many tools out there that will do this, at least not without a huge cost. Exchange Monitor can alert you of issues, or even situations that could become an issue later on so you can hopefully head it off.

Email servers are one of those things that if it is working right, they are happy with it and don’t think about it. But there are a lot of things that can affect the performance and health of that server though. As an Administrator, you don’t want to always have to monitor your server. But you do need to know when a problem is coming, or there is something that just isn’t quite right. You need a tool that lets you know what and where these problems are before users notice them and start to complain.

Josh is a member of the Thwack community. Thwack is a community site designed by network engineers for network engineers. It’s a place where they can go online and share troubleshooting tips and information. There are user forums and information on troubleshooting routing issues, network traffic issues and even maintaining Exchange servers.

I asked Josh for recommendations for people like me who have an Exchange account with other providers, full of Geeks who may be sensitive to outside suggestions. They may not like me telling them we should be using something like Exchange Monitor. Josh indicated that instead of saying the company “should” try or use something like this, I should say something about how I have tried it, and found it to be a huge help.

Thanks so much to Josh for joining me. I was happy to be able to pass along a great new free tool, and I’ll definitely be passing it on to Rackspace, as well.

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iPhone SMTP Port with Exchange

Chris — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 21:29:06 +0000

iPhone SMTP Port with Exchange is a post from Chris Pirillo

Even though Exchange support on the iPhone is largely missing, I’ve been happy enough with it so far. Granted, I don’t rely on more than a few calendars and my own contact list on a daily basis – but having quick access to my email folders is sufficient for my needs.

Per Greg’s suggestion, I’ll be keeping an eye on iPXSync. I’m not sure if they’ll be creating a private label version for places like Rackspace, but something is better than nothing.

In setting up IMAP (Exchange) on the iPhone, I only ran into one snag. Seems you can’t easily set the outgoing SMTP port, which Rackspace has set to 2525 (as opposed to the default 25). The way around this is exceedingly simple. If you have a Rackspace account, set your outgoing server to owa.mailseat.com:2525 (no spaces). This port tweak is applicable for any SMTP provider, I suppose.

And here’s to hoping that Rackspace upgrades to OWA 2007 sooner rather than later…

How to Handle Remote Tech Support

chris@lockergnome.com (Chris Pirillo) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 06:30:00 GMT

Using GoToAssist is the easiest way to view and control another person's computer online. Use it to provide instant technical support to family, friends and customers. Start a session with just one click, and instantly connect with the other party.

Network Tools for Windows

chris@lockergnome.com (Chris Pirillo) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:30:00 GMT

You need these network tools, no matter which operating systems and networks you have to support. SolarWinds ipMonitor: Affordable Network Monitoring for SMBs. Get turnkey network, server and application availability monitoring with SolarWinds ipMonitor v9.0. This easy-to-use, reliable solution for SMBs delivers out-of-the-box availability monitoring so you always know exactly what's up with Active Directory, DNS, Exchange, FTP, Web, IMAP, MS SQL Server, and SMTP. Download your free trial today. Or, try their totally free tools! And, through 2/29, save 20% when you purchase ipMonitor 9.0.

Get Your Own Web Site

chris@lockergnome.com (Chris Pirillo) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:30:00 GMT

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VMware and Parallels for Virtual Machines

chris@lockergnome.com (Chris Pirillo) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:30:00 GMT

It doesn't matter if you're running on Windows or Mac OS X - every power user needs either Parallels or VMware (or both). There's never been an easier way to test software without destroying your primary operating system's stability. Think of how many times you wish you could press a 'reverse' button on your computer. Plus, there's no easier way to try new Linux distributions - see what all the fuss is about. Run Windows in OS X, run Linux in Windows, but the best way to do either is with VMware and/or Parallels.

Coupons for Online Shopping

chris@lockergnome.com (Chris Pirillo) — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 07:56:13 GMT

This feed is fueled by Lockergnome Online Shopping and Coupon Codes

Before you shop next time, see if we have a coupon first.