Nu's Views

Android Exchange ActiveSync support

nuronv — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 18:00:58 +0000

If you want to want to use Exchange Active on a stock Android device straight out of the box you are going to be disappointed. The latest Android Gingerbread 2.3, Honeycomb 3.2 and Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0 have built in support for Exchange mail however I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. It will connect to your server, sync your contacts, calendar and mail folders. It will also use active sync security policies allowing administrators to force PINs and do remote handset wipes. Its all sounding good so far isn’t it? The main problem is the email itself. It will not receive updates to any Inbox subfolders without you manually going in to the folder and telling it to refresh. The 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich client does allow automatic folder syncing but then doesn’t notify you when those folders receive new mail. It will put the number of new emails next to the folder name but if you don’t go looking for them you won’t find them.

So what are the alternatives? There are quite a few out there but these are the ones I have tried
Improved Email
If you couldn’t guess from the title Improved Email is like the stock Android Email Application but improved. It adds in things like syncing of sub folders and various other features which should have really been present in the first place. It also has a good price, FREE! Unfortunately it does have a few problems. Firstly it would appear from what i understand the App is no longer being actively updated. The product itself can be quite clunky and isn’t very smooth. The widget is very basic and doesn’t look very polished. There is also a lovely bug if you try to uninstall it which makes the uninstallation fail.

K-9 Mail
A better free and open source option is K-9 Mail. This is actively supported and is generally an all round better product to use than “Improved Email”. Like most open source software it does suffer a bit from being a bit more geared towards a techy audience. Options tend to be abundant and flexible but as a result come across as complicated and unintuitive. A prime example of this is the option for “Expunge”. I love the word it doesn’t explain what it exactly its expunging. It also doesn’t support Exchange Push, it polls for changes every few minutes which will do the job but it isn’t “proper”.

Touchdown
Despite its name this isn’t an app for American Football. Touchdown is more professional and has been on Android Market for several years now. Due to this the level of maturity the performance is a bit more refined. It does however have a cluttered, inconsistent and generally quite ugly UI. It does feel like its been slowly added to over time. It is however very capable of doing the job.

Moxier Mail
Moxier has also been around for a while and is generally very stable. It also has a refined UI that looks and behaves well. Widgets are also well covered with a dashboard that covers all of your recent email and upcoming events. As an administrator one thing i don’t like is that the forced PIN policy has been twisted so that it only applies to the Moxier application rather than phone as a whole. Despite this I would recommend Moxier Mail above the other Exchange clients I have tried. It is pleasant to use and doesn’t have many performance issues or force closes on my Nexus S and Transformer.

SBS2003 – ActiveSync Fun

nuronv — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 22:05:47 +0000

I’ve had the same problem with Small Business Server 2003 and ActiveSync a few times now. Users get one of these new fangled phones, I go to set them up only to find it won’t quite work.

Exchange Connectivity Tester should be your first port of call. It runs through step by step to show you where it is failing. 9/10 times it is either a security certificate issue or….

FolderSync command test failed
Exchange Returned an HTTP 500 response

There are if you aren’t able to see any obvious problems I would recommend you save yourself some time and reset the IIS exchange virtual directories and then create a new one for Outlook Mobile Access. Its actually quite quick and simple although It does mean that no one can access OWA while you are doing it however it shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes if you read through first. The following are two sections taken from Microsoft knowledge base articles.

Reseting the default virtual directories

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/883380

Back up your IIS Metabase. To do this, follow these steps:
1. Start IIS Manager.
2. Right-click Default Web Site, point to All Tasks, and then click Save Configuration to a File.
Delete the virtual directories for Outlook Web Access. To do this, right-click Exadmin in the left pane of IIS Manager, and then click Delete. Click Yeswhen you are prompted with the question of whether you want to delete this item.Repeat this step for the following virtual directories:Quit IIS Manager.
- Exchange
- ExchWeb
- Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync
- OMA
- Public
Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then press ENTER.
Change to the following folder. In this example, Driveis the hard disk drive where Windows is installed:
Drive:\inetpub\adminscripts
Type adsutil, and then press ENTER. Important By default, CScript is not the default scripting host for Windows Server 2003. To run the adsutil command, CScript must be configured as the default scripting host. To do this, click Yes if you are prompted to register CScript as you default host for VBscript, and then click OK.Note If you receive a list of adsutil command options, CScript is already configured as the default scripting host for VBscript.
Type adsutil delete ds2mb, and then press ENTER. Note To set the default scripting host to WScript, type WScript //H:WScript at the command prompt, press ENTER, and then click OK.
Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Services.
To restart the Microsoft Exchange System Attendant service, follow these steps:
1. Click Start, click Run, type services.msc, and then click OK.
2. Right-click Microsoft Exchange System Attendant, and then click Restart.
3. When you are prompted to restart the dependant Exchange Server services, click Yes.NoteWhen you restart the Microsoft Exchange System Attendant service, the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service is also restarted. In this scenario, your Exchange Server users lose connectivity to their Exchange Server mailboxes.The virtual directories are re-created. To verify that the virtual directories are re-created, start IIS Manager, and then view the Default Web site folder.Important If the virtual directories are not re-created after 15 minutes, restart the computer.
Reset the access permissions to Anonymous. To do this, follow these steps:
1. Start IIS Manager, right-click ExchWeb, click Properties, and then click the Directory Security tab.
2. Under Authentication and access control click Edit, and then verify that the Enable anonymous access check box is turned on.
3. Click to select the Integrated Windows authentication check box, click OK, and then click Apply.
4. If an Inheritance Overrides dialog box appears, click Select All, and then click OK.
5. Under Authentication and access control, click Edit, and then click to clear the Integrated Windows authentication check box.
6. Click OK two times, and then quit IIS Manager.

Creating a new OMA Virtual Directory

Copy Pasted from http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=817379

Disable the forms-based authentication for the Exchange virtual directory

// To create a secondary virtual directory for Exchange that is based on steps 1 through 7 of the following procedure, make sure that forms-based authentication is disabled for the Exchange virtual directory before you make the copy. Before you follow these steps, disable forms-based authentication in Exchange System Manager. Then restart Internet Information Services (IIS). To do this, follow these steps:

Open Exchange Manager.
Expand Administrative Groups, expand the first administrative group, and then expand Servers.
Expand the server container for the Exchange Server 2003 server that you will be configuring, expand Protocols, and then expand HTTP.
Under the HTTP container, right-click the Exchange Virtual Server container, and then click Properties.
Click the Settings tab, clear the Enable Forms Based Authentication check box, and then click OK.
Close Exchange Manager.
Click Start, click Run, type IISRESET /NOFORCE, and then press ENTER to restart Internet Information Services (IIS).

Create a secondary virtual directory for Exchange server

// You must use Internet IIS Manager to create this virtual directory for Exchange ActiveSync and Outlook Mobile Access to work. If you are using Windows Server 2003, follow these steps:

Start Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
Locate the Exchange virtual directory. The default location is as follows:
Web Sites\Default Web Site\Exchange
Right-click the Exchange virtual directory, click All Tasks, and then click Save Configuration to a File.
In the File name box, type a name. For example, type ExchangeVDir. Click OK.
(If you are doing this on SBS2003 Backup then and Delete the Exchange-OMA virtual folder, you will find out why in a second)
Right-click the root of this Web site. Typically, this is Default Web Site. Click New, and then click Virtual Directory (from file).
In the Import Configuration dialog box, click Browse, locate the file that you created in step 4, click Open, and then click Read File.
Under Select a configuration to import , click Exchange, and then click OK.A dialog box will appear that states that the “virtual directory already exists.”
Select the Create a new virtual directory option. In the Alias box, type a name for the new virtual directory that you want Exchange ActiveSync and Outlook Mobile Access to use. For example, type exchange-oma. Click OK. (It must be called exchange-oma on sbs2003)
Right-click the new virtual directory. In this example, click exchange-oma. Click Properties.
Click the Directory Security tab.
Under Authentication and access control, click Edit.
Make sure that only the following authentication methods are enabled, and then click OK:On the Directory Security tab, under IP address and domain name restrictions, click Edit.
- Integrated Windows authentication
- Basic authentication
Click the option for Denied access, click Add, click Single computer and type the IP address of the server that you are configuring, and then click OK twice.
Under Secure communications, click Edit. Make sure that Require secure channel (SSL) is not enabled, and then click OK.
Click OK, and then close the IIS Manager.
Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
Locate the following registry subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MasSync\Parameters
Right-click Parameters, click to New, and then click String Value.
Type ExchangeVDir, and then press ENTER. Right-click ExchangeVDir, and then click Modify.NoteExchangeVDir is case-sensitive. If you do not type ExchangeVDir exactly as it appears in this article, ActiveSync does not find the key when it locates the exchange-oma folder.
In the Value data box, type the name of the new virtual directory that you created in step 8. For example, type /exchange-oma. Click OK.
Quit Registry Editor.
Restart the IIS Admin service. To do this, follow these steps:
1. Click Start, click Run, type services.msc, and then click OK.
2. In the list of services, right-click IIS Admin service, and then click Restart.
If you want to reuse Forms-based Authentication on the Exchange server, follow these steps to re-enable Forms-based Authentication on the /Exchange virtual directory in Exchange System Manager.
1. Open Exchange Manager.
2. Expand Administrative Groups, expand the first administrative group, and then expand Servers.
3. Expand the server container for the Exchange Server 2003 server that you will be configuring, expand Protocols, and then expand HTTP.
4. Under the HTTP container, right-click the Exchange Virtual Server container, and then click Properties.
5. Click the Settings tab, click to select the Enable Forms Based Authentication check box, and then click OK.
6. Close Exchange Manager.
7. Click Start, click Run, type IISRESET/NOFORCE, and then press ENTER to restart Internet Information Services (IIS).

Android Update Errors

nuronv — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 18:00:22 +0000

For the past few days I’ve had the following error whenever I try to update or download an application from the Android Market on my Nexus S running the Ice Cream Sandwich.

*App Name* Can’t Be Downloaded Due to An Error (-101)

It turns out to be quite a simple fix. The Google account that I originally entered to set up my phone was @googlemail.com. Around a year ago I enabled @gmail.com on the same account. Generally around the web including the web based Android Market I can log in using either domain but it appears Android only accepts @gmail.com now.

Luckily this doesn’t require much effort to fix and you don’t have to wipe the phone or lose any data. On the phone handset just go to:
Settings > Accounts & Sync > Add Account > Select Google and add your account using the gmail.com address.
Once that is done go back to Accounts & Sync and remove the googlemail.com account.

Stuff wot I bought: Saitek Back catalog

nuronv — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:10:00 +0000

Saitek are a company who have both impressed and bewildered me for many years now. I think I can honestly say I’m a fan and follow any new projects in the pipelines. They have shuffled around in to madcats recently but they seem to be in a good place at the moment. Saitek and their sub brand Cyborg and putting out some good products at the moment. Over the next few days I hope to share my thoughts on some of their newer ones with you.

New years resolutions

nuronv — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:45:00 +0000

Regular blogging = failed

Stories in my ears

nuronv — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 21:29:56 +0000

After a couple of months of debating it I finally got an Audible subscription today. To put it bluntly it really does sum up why DRM just doesn’t work.
For those not in the know Audible is a subscription service for audiobooks. The basic plan gives you one audiobook a month for £8 a month and a discounted rate if you want to buy more (usually £4). Considering the cost of physical audiobooks this is fairly good value, no complaints there.
The problem is the format it comes in. Audible uses its own DRM file format which a few select players can play. Now this isn’t a problem when you have an Android or iPhone which have native Audible apps but what if you want to play it in the on a Windows Phone 7 handset?
There is a way to convert the files to MP3, the Audible website even tells you how to do half of it. Burn them to CD and rip them back to MP3.
So after downloading the files to my computer I then have to download iTunes which is the only player which is actively supported. Then you can make a playlist of the audio books and burn the to disc. That said you are best checking that you have a lot of spare CDs or a virtual ISO program as an audio book in CD audio format is going to take up half a dozen discs. Once that is done you can then rip the discs back to MP3.

OR you could download a pirate copy and save yourself a couple of hours of pain. If I wanted to I could have found a pirate copy in minutes and saved myself some time and money. When will companies learn that DRM like this doesn’t work. It punishes paying customers and does nothing to stop people who want to steal it doing so.

Audible you make me want to steal

SharePoint 2010 – Adding Managed Account Error

nuronv — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 18:17:44 +0000

Much to my delight today I stumbled upon this little bug in SharePoint Central Admin whilst trying to add a service account.

Specified value is not supported for the {0} parameter

This seems to be a bug with Central Admin, Its time for a SharePoint PowerShell work around.
First of all we want to create a veritable with the user credentials. The following will open up a login box, the details you enter will then be saved.
$cred = Get-Credential
Then apply these credentials to the “Add managed account” cmdlet
New-SPManagedAccount -Credential $cred
This will then add the managed account and give you a confirmation

Stuff wot I have bought – 3DS

nuronv — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 17:00:53 +0000

I purchased my Nintendo 3DS after the price dropped to around £115. Although I was aware the software line up was extremely limited I nabbed mine from Tesco. I was well aware of the reason it is so cheap, they fudged up the launch. This is an attempt to get a larger install base after Nintendo realised they had a hand-held with more or less no games of any value available for it. I’ve bought it on a future promise that one day there will be games that will make it worthwhile, I also did this with my Wii….and Playstation Move…this doesn’t look good.

So now I have a hinged lump of three tone blue plastic with only Star Fox for it but somehow it is still in my coat pocket. I’ve had it for about 2 months but still haven’t had any streetpass interactions apart from when i went to Eurogamer Expo, or Mii Expo as it is now known. So every day it comes out with me to count my foot steps and every day I collect my Coin rewards for doing so. This lets me get hats for my Mii’s , this is my life now. I walk around to dress digital characters up in cat ears.
I really want to love this thing but Nintendo seem to be bad choices with it constantly. So far there are 3 games that might be interested in buying. However 3DS games are £35 RRP, #WHATAREYOUTHINKING. Talking of stupid pricing, the eShop is even more deluded. Super Mario Land, you know, from the gameboy with the Lions that spit at you, Evil Clouds and Submarine action? The one that came out in 1989, that’s the best part of £5. I’m afraid that’s well beyond the price I’m willing to flutter away on a whim, at that price I need to justify it.

The hardware itself is good. It’s up to the usual Nintendo standard, it feels like thick chunky plastic that you could drop without it making much of a dent. The 3D aspect works very well once you get lined up, I only wish there was something to look at. There are 3D videos available, oddly they only seem to have 4 available at a time…I don’t know why. I loved the “OK Go” video with the Dogs, it was fun and really showed of the 3D but that’s gone now so I can’t show anyone. I hope you like magic tricks and lizards as those are the only ones that seem to be updated regularly.

I can only hope that the up and coming titles like Mario Kart, Mario Land and Luigi’s mansion are up to scratch otherwise this is doomed to failure. The recent confirmation of the second circle pad strap-on worries me deeply, this is Nintendo panicking.

A games console is only as good as the games you can play on it. I’m currently playing Star Fox 64 3D so things aren’t all bad. As long as that can keep me interested until November when the Mario whoring starts they should hopefully be able to keep the 3DS dream alive. Thing are bleak at the moment but there is a silver lining.

Age of Empires: Online – Butchered

nuronv — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 18:00:36 +0000

Age of Empire Online finally emerged in to the wild, boy have they hacked up the free version.

A most of the payment structure which I talked about in my last Age of Empire’s post is now wrong. Gas Powered games, what the hell are you guys doing there? You can’t play for 5 minutes without being reminded that you are on the crippled version. You guys seem to have made the best attempt possible to butcher the game up to limit the free to play players. You can’t even equip most of the drops you get it chests.

Next little annoyance I found with it was that you could only buy items from the shop using MS Points. Points which you can only buy in bulk. Bulk which is larger that a Premium Civilisation but not large enough for you to actually buy anything else with. I’ve never really had a problem with Games for Windows Live before but you guys really are a crafty bunch of jackals.

I was really hoping the AOE:O was going to be the return to form of the RTS genre. The game itself is solid, classic RTS with a spattering of RPG and gear elements. If you are willing to pay for a premium civilisation it is still well worth playing but don’t fool yourself in to thinking this is free. It’s a demo that unlocks when you feed it money.

ChromeBook Thoughts

nuronv — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 18:00:28 +0000

I have recently had the chance to get my hands on a ChromeBook. I have to say I was impressed but do still have a reservation or two.

I understand the ChromeBook and its market. It is aimed at people who want to access the web, web apps and nothing more. It it is a perfect replacement for Netbooks which are something of a stopgap solution. They are aimed at your parents, they want to turn on, check ebay, upload pictures to Facebook then turn it off. They don’t have the knowledge or inclenation to do anything else.
In this respect ChromeBook’s cover all the bases and have been well designed to fill this niche. At around £350 for the Wifi only version and £400 for the 3G version they are also very attractively priced. They start up extremely quickly and provide a good browsing experience in a tightly controlled environment. There is very little for the end user to maintain, break or update. You could quite happily give this to your granmother and not have to explain how to use it. Even the battery is a integrated and sealed in to the bottom of the laptop. In one word: Focused

Being such a focused device it does have several trade offs. Offline support is still very limited, even most 1st party google apps don’t allow you to save the content to use when you can’t access the internet. I’m sure this will change as time goes on but it will cause problems for a lot of people. Printing is going to be a issue as well as most printers aren’t currently cloud enabled so if you need to print you won’t be able to use this as your only computer.

As a tool for accessing the internet Google and Samsung have nailed the concept and Chrome as an OS works well. Its a simple system for a user who doesn’t want to be concerned with anything else. It actually strikes me as a product Apple could have produced, the feature set is controlled but the trade off is a simple and slick experience. So would i buy one? No. Its a great device but I’m not the target audience.