February, 2008

Oops!! I'm quite late to talk about this, but it's worthy one.

Do you know about Anywhere access facility and other new features available with Exchange Server 2007?

With Exchange Server 2007, employees get anywhere access* to their e-mail, voice mail, calendars, and contacts from a variety of clients and devices.

Please find this article to know more?

Please find the list of Ports used by Exchange Server:

Ports used by Exchange Server

When we execute the SMTP command, we'll receive a reply from the mail server in the form of a three digit number followed by information describing the reply.

For example,

250 OK

Please find the list of reply codes from the Server.

Please find the following steps and SMTP commands to test SMTP communication using Telnet on Port 25.

1.                   At a command prompt, type telnet, and then press ENTER. This command opens the Telnet session.

2.                   Type set localecho and then press ENTER. This optional command lets you view the characters as you type them. This setting may be required for some SMTP servers.

3.                   Type set logfile <filename>. This optional command enables logging of the Telnet session to the specified log file. If you only specify a file name, the location of the log file is the current working directory. If you specify a path and a file name, the path must be local to the computer. Both the path and the file name that you specify must be entered in the Microsoft DOS 8.3 format. The path that you specify must already exist. If you specify a log file that doesn't exist, it will be created for you.

4.                   Type open mail1.fabrikam.com 25 and then press ENTER.

5.                   Type EHLO contoso.com and then press ENTER.

6.                   Type MAIL FROM:chris@contoso.com and then press ENTER.

7.                   Type RCPT TO:kate@fabrikam.com NOTIFY=success,failure and then press ENTER. The optional NOTIFY command defines the particular delivery status notification (DSN) messages that the destination SMTP server must provide to the sender. DSN messages are defined in RFC 1891. In this case, you are requesting a DSN message for successful or failed message delivery.

8.                   Type DATA and then press ENTER. You will receive a response that resembles the following

9.                   Type Subject: Test Sampleand then press ENTER.

10.               Press ENTER. RFC 2822 requires a blank line between the Subject: header field and the message body.

11.               Type This is a test message and then press ENTER.

12.               Press ENTER, type a period ( . ) and then press ENTER. You will receive a response that resembles the following:

13.               To disconnect from the destination SMTP server, type QUIT and then press ENTER. You will receive a response that resembles the following:

14.               To close the Telnet session, type quit and then press ENTER.

Please find the list of SMTP commands and its definitions, which can be used on multiple places. For example it can be used to check event SMTP sinks by sending mails.

SMTP commands

The following table lists the extended SMTP commands that Exchange makes available to the SMTP service.

Extended SMTP commands

What is an Offline Address Book?

An offline address book is a container that stores a collection of offline address lists. Administrators configure available offline address books, and Outlook users can choose which offline address lists they want to download.

What is an Offline address list?   

An offline address list is a set of address lists in files that are created and stored on an offline address list server. Users who work offline can connect to an Exchange Server computer and download offline address lists to obtain information about other users in the organization. When you create an offline address book, the specified address lists are converted to a separate set of files and stored in a public folder. When users download the offline address book, this data file is used as the source of information. Outlook 2003 uses offline address book to provide offline access to directory information from global address list (GAL) and from other address lists.

• Exchange generates new offline address book files & places them in a special public folder, known as a system folder, for Outlook to download.
• Offline address book files are compressed before they are added to offline address book system folders so that the download to Outlook is minimal.
• Outlook is scheduled to check periodically for new offline address book files in these system folders, and download the required files.
• Offline address books typically contain at least one address list that represents the global address list (GAL).
• Users who are working offline can use this global address list with Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI) e-mail clients.

How it's getting created?

• Several Exchange Server components work with Active Directory to generate and maintain offline address books.
• After an offline address book has been created
• either automatically by Exchange Setup
• or manually by an administrator using Exchange System Manager
• Exchange Server and Active Directory work together to maintain the offline address book, keeping it synchronized with changes that may be made in the directory.

Where it will be displayed?

• System folders can be displayed in Exchange System Manager, enabling an administrator to view the files that make up the offline address book

What will be the size of Offline address book? 

• Offline address book sizes can vary from a few megabytes to a few hundred megabytes. (It depends on various factors)

Note: Address book size refers to the size of the compressed offline address book files on the Exchange Server, and not the uncompressed, expanded file size for the offline address book files on the Outlook client.

Visual Basic 6.0 sample

Dim TextDisclaimer As String
Dim HTMLDisclaimer As String

Implements IEventIsCacheable
Implements CDO.ISMTPOnArrival

Private Sub IEventIsCacheable_IsCacheable()
    'Just returns S_OK.
End Sub

Private Sub Class_Initialize()
  'TODO: Replace the sample disclaimer text with your own text.
  TextDisclaimer = vbCrLf & "DISCLAIMER:" & vbCrLf & "Sample Disclaimer Text."
  HTMLDisclaimer = "<p></p><p>DISCLAIMER:<br>Sample Disclaimer Text"
End Sub

Private Sub ISMTPOnArrival_OnArrival(ByVal Msg As CDO.IMessage, EventStatus As CDO.CdoEventStatus)
    If Msg.HTMLBody <> "" Then
        Dim szPartI As String
        Dim szPartII As String
        Dim pos As Integer
       
        'Search for the "</body>" tag and insert the disclaimer before that tag.
        pos = InStr(1, Msg.HTMLBody, "</body>", vbTextCompare)
        szPartI = Left(Msg.HTMLBody, pos - 1)
        szPartII = Right(Msg.HTMLBody, Len(Msg.HTMLBody) - (pos - 1))
        Msg.HTMLBody = szPartI + HTMLDisclaimer + szPartII
    End If

    If Msg.TextBody <> "" Then
        Msg.TextBody = Msg.TextBody & vbCrLf & TextDisclaimer & vbCrLf
    End If
   
    'Commit the content changes to the transport ADO Stream object.
    Msg.DataSource.Save
    EventStatus = cdoRunNextSink
End Sub

Whenever if we work with event sink, we need to check the event registration, what're the associated items, its item properties and its importance (whether it is required or not)...

Event Registration 

To receive event notifications, you must register with Exchange by creating and saving event registration items.

Event Registration items 

An item becomes an event registration item when you set the content class of the item to urn:content-class:storeeventreg.

Note: For more information, we can get more details from the Content Classes article.

The following table defines the event properties for an event registration item http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/events/ namespace:

* This field is required only if you use a script to handle the event.
** This field is used only for the OnTimer event.

Microsoft Entourage:mac

News

Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac 114 update released Tuesday, February 12, 2008. There is no update for Office 2008 at this time. Still a bit early.

Updates

Today i found Amir's couple of blog posts which has information on Office 2008.

How Entourage works

How Does Entourage Work?

• The article explains how Entourage works with a mailbox on an Exchange Server.
• This blog article will encompass the supported versions of Entourage & Exchange Server, Entourage 2004 & 2008, and Exchange 2000, 2003 & 2007.
• Let's list all the different features in Entourage for which it needs to talk to Exchange Server or any other server in a Windows Active Directory based environment.

Entourage 2008 - New features

Entourage 2008 – New Features Part I

Part I describes features for all users.

Entourage 2008 – New Features Part II

In Part II, Amir describes features which are exclusive to Entourage 2008 users in an Exchange organization where they are working with other Outlook users.