Thursday 28 June 2012

Emails Sent by Users Stuck in Outbox/Draft Folder - Exchange 2007

Make sure that the Anti-Virus Exclusion lists are enabled on ePO enterprise server level  (Antivirus Management level) as per the recommended Microsoft article-

Directory Exclusion lists for Exchange (exchange 2007)
PickupDirectoryPath:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\TransportRoles\Pickup
ReplayDirectoryPath:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\TransportRoles\Replay
RootDropDirectoryPath:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\TransportRoles\data\Queue

C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\TransportRoles\data\IpFilter
C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\Working\OleConverter
C:\WINDOWS\system32\inetsrv
C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\ClientAccess

Process Exclusions and File Name Extension Exclusions

Refer managing McAfee Anti-Virus file and folder exclusion at https://kc.mcafee.com/corporate/index?page=content&id=KB50998&pmv=print

Wednesday 20 June 2012

Typical Corporate Network Diagram

one of the best infrastructure which I have confidently implemented and empowered for.
infrastructure network diagram
new technologies keeps me hosted 24x7.
I use Microsoft Visio 2010 & EDraw v6 to depict the infrastructure diagrams.

..view also, 3 Tier SharePoint 2010 architecture

Corporate Network Diagrams

Sunday 17 June 2012

Incredible relief from pharyngitis, cough and cold


Ventej® GinSpicher® Capsule..!
GinSpicher® derived from Ginger, Spices and Herbs..! 
I used to get either sore throat (pharyngitis), cough (bronchial asthma symptoms) or cold once in every 3-6 months. And without an allopathic antibiotic drug (erythromycin, amoxicillin or  ampicillin) it never subsides. Now, after I prepared the below medicine, since last 3 years I never had a single signs of chest congestion, cough, cold or sore throat. Yes, symptoms were there for 1 day (last year) however were never acute..!
This preparation was carefully prepared which doesn't have any side effects. Proven to eliminate sore throat, cough, cold and related flu and is believed to prevent bronchial asthma (starting stage), gastrointestinal distress, nausea and motion sickness. I have used exotic spices & herbs that contain many plant derived chemical compounds that are known to have anti-oxidant, disease preventing and health promoting properties. NO artificial substances added. Purely Ayurvedic NATURAL and dried under natural heat of HOT Sun..!
I'm thinking of patenting this make..!

ingredients to be posted soon..

Introducing Ventej® GinSpicher® Capsule..!

GinSpicher® derived from Ginger, Spices and Herbs..!
GinSpicher has acted as armour of medicinal vibes in most of the cases during the seasonal outbreaks..!
-releasing soon.. prepared by Rinith
Ventej® GinSpicher® - a product of Rinith

Thursday 14 June 2012

WOW!!! Your brain develops the negative

This is interesting..... Though an interesting piece of information forwarded to me, I didn't want to breach the information security aspect by forwarding to all my address chain and make an eye opener for the spammers. So, sharing it here.
This glimpse just takes a few minutes.
Read the instructions.. 



click this negative print to enlarge
Instructions
1. Stare at the red dot on this Indian Actress - Deepika Padukone's nose for approx. 40 seconds. 
2. Turn your eyes to a plain surface (blank wall, or white surface).
3. Blink repeatedly and quickly. See the color transformation.
as understood, what you should see is a full color representation of the image as your focal point of retina and brain processes the negative image.  Our visual system is constantly processing input and can fool us or create illusions from retinal or cortical processes.  This illusion example is called a negative afterimage that is caused by adaptation of the photo receptors in the retina.  Forcing one's eyes to fixate on a point (in this case the dot on Deepika Padukone nose) reduces the normal jitter or micro jerks that constantly occur as we scan things in our visual world.  The micro saccades normally cause images to "dance" over the surface of the eye eliminating the possibility of too much adaptation if an image remains static over one group of photo receptors for too long.  In fact, if one was to eliminate all movement of the eye, and we were to fixate on a single point, our perception of our visual world would fade away.  So, what happens in this illusion is that when we look from the first image to the grey space or to a large plain surface, the photoreceptors that become adapted no longer signal effectively, but the photoreceptors surrounding the adapted photoreceptors strongly signal perhaps signaling opponent cells in the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) involved in color vision.

Examples: Kinds of Downtime/ Maintenance notification


Unplanned Outage Notification - Intranet

Please note that currently intranet is experiencing an unplanned outage.

You may experience a degraded service and/or complete outage of service until issue is resolved.

Start : 22/04/2013 8:30am
Finish: Ongoing - No ETA

We apologise for any inconveniences this may cause to your service during the outage period and thank you for your patience as we work to fix the issue.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Resolved >> Unplanned Outage Notification - Intranet

The outage has been remediated and you should now be able to connect normally.
Start : 22/04/2013 8:30am
Finish: 22/04/2013 9:32am

Thank you again for showing patience.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Unplanned Outage Notification - Intranet

Please note that currently intranet is experiencing an unplanned outage.

You may experience a degraded service and/or complete outage of service until issue is resolved.

Start : 22/04/2013 8:30am
Finish: Ongoing - No ETA

We apologise for any inconveniences this may cause to your service during the outage period and thank you for your patience as we work to fix the issue.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Resolved >> Unplanned Outage Notification - Intranet

The outage has been remediated and you should now be able to connect normally.
Start : 22/04/2013 8:30am
Finish: 22/04/2013 9:32am

Thank you again for showing patience.

Examples: Kinds of Downtime/ Maintenance notification

Ex: To Staff


From: Rinith K.T.
Sent: Tuesday, 23 March, 2010 10:15 PM
To: EMP
Subject: Scheduled site maintenance window

Hello folks,

Network Operations will be performing routine maintenance on the network infrastructure that powers level -14, level -15, level -16, Production Servers, DR Site Servers, Test & Development as well as corporate servers.

Outages during the scheduled maintenance windows may be sporadic. We don't anticipate that all sites will be down for the entire window. There will be some amount of down time for these sites.

Our scheduled maintenance windows are:
* 2010-04-17 18:00 - 22:00 GMT Primary Downtime Window
* 2010-04-18 18:00 - 20:00 GMT Optional Backup Downtime Window

Our web services shall display a downtime notice during any outages.  As is always our goal, downtime will be minimized.  Our current expectation is four hours of total downtime within the maintenance windows.

Questions or concerns regarding this maintenance window may be directed to our Support team.

Sincerely,
Rinith

Examples: Kinds of Downtime/ Maintenance notification


Ex: To Staff

From: Rinith. KT
Sent: Thursday, 16 December, 2010 3:50 PM
To: Finance
Cc: *********; *********
Subject: GP Maintenance at 10PM tomorrow

Hi Finance Colleagues,

We will be applying the latest Microsoft service pack and hotfix releases on ERP Great Plains server this Friday. The update will commence on Friday 17 December at 10pm AST.  The estimated maintenance window will be 2 hours.  During this maintenance phase, all Great Plain application services will be OFFLINE both on Production Site as well as DR Site.

Please note that this downtime affects ONLY to the Finance users who currently have access to the GP system.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding the upgrade, please feel free to contact us at any time.

Regards,
Rinith

Examples: Kinds of Downtime/ Maintenance notification

Ex: To Staff 


From: Rinith K.T. 
Sent: 14 November 2010 08:05
To: EMP; Consultants
Subject: Intranet Downtime Notification

All,

Please note that we are planning for shutting down access to intranet portal during the below maintenance schedule.

Our goal is to successfully complete the much awaited task and restore service within the delineated time frame.

Subject:          Intranet Service Pack Upgrade
Start Time:     Sunday, November 14, 2010 5:30PM
End Time:      Monday, November 15, 2010 5:30PM
Maintenance Window:  24 hours (tentative)
Description:   During the above period, we will be upgrading intranet farm with the latest Service Pack. Intranet won't be accessible during this phase. Importantly, please make sure that you check-in the open documents before leaving your cubicle.

Please do not hesitate to contact me should you need any assistance or clarification with regards to this downtime.

Regards,
Rinith 

Examples: Kinds of Downtime/ Maintenance notification

Ex: Service Provider to Customer 

Dear Valued Customers,

We will be performing an infrastructure maintenance on Tuesday May 8, 2012 at 8pm EST.

The maintenance will include upgrade of our current switches to prevent any further outages experienced last week.

The upgrade window will last about 15 minutes and you may notice some brief intermittent disruptions in the network connectivity.

Once the new switches are in place, we will follow up with an after action email.
If you have any questions, please let us know.

-Revion.com

Examples: Kinds of Downtime/ Maintenance notification

Ex: Service Provider to Customer 

Dear Customer,

Qatar Data Center System Engineers will be performing a planned maintenance on Qatar Data Center Monitoring System during the below maintenance window. Qatar Data Center goal is to successfully complete the task and restore service within the stated time frame.


Subject:
Planned Maintenance on Qatar Data Center Monitoring System
Start Time:
Monday, August 18, 2008  19:00 (GMT +3)
End Time:
Monday, August 18, 2008  23:00 (GMT +3)
Maintenance Window:
4 hours
Description:
During the above period, Qatar Data Center system engineers will be performing maintenance on Qatar Data Center Monitoring System.


There might be some lack of monitoring on the hosted platform during the maintenance window.

We apologize for any inconvenience that you may experience.

The helpdesk ticket ID related to this maintenance is [HPDA023522].

Please do not hesitate to contact the NOC should you need any assistance or clarification.


Best Regards,

Qatar Data Center NOC

Examples: Kinds of Downtime/ Maintenance notification


Dear all,

Good morning,

This is reminder about a note sent previously regarding the 4 hours website downtime due to server maintenance by our website Hosting Provider.
The exact date will be Saturday the 21st of April from 4:00 am to 8:00 am.

Thanks and Regards,

Examples: Kinds of Downtime/ Maintenance notification


sample downtime message from webhosting company:

Dear Valued Customers,
At approximately 3:31pm EST, our Cedar Knolls, NJ data center experienced a utility power outage.  Subsequent to the utility power failure, the generators that power systems A and D did not start automatically.  Manual intervention was required to start generator power.  Unfortunately, this caused our systems at this location to experience brief power loss.  As of 4:33pm EST, utility power was restored successfully and our systems are no longer on generator power.

If you are still experiencing any connectivity issues, please let us know at once.

Also, we are currently in talks with our data center to further explain why generator power did not cut over automatically and we will work with them to formulate a plan to avoid future outages.

We deeply apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. 

Examples: Kinds of Downtime/ Maintenance notification

VMware Infrastructure Maintenance 31/5/12 @ 6:30pm: duration 5Hrs.

From: Rinith KT
Sent: Wednesday, 30 May, 2012 11:43 AM
To: ******************************************
Cc: *************
Subject: VMware Infrastructure Maintenance 31/5/12 @ 6:30pm: duration 5Hrs.


Dears,

We will be performing VMware host maintenance this Thursday 31st May 2012 at 6:00PM.

During this maintenance window all the 3 VMware host machines will be upgraded from VMware ESX 4.0 to VMware ESXi 5.0. Some of the non-critical virtual machines under this farm will be shut down during the process for smoother transition. For ref. please click the internal link vmservers (highlighted with arrow) which will be shutdown. Proper precautions will be taken to insure your systems and applications are safe and secure.

The following virtual machines and dependent applications will be affected directly or indirectly for approx. 5 hrs.:
  • HRMS application – live motion planned Ã  no shutdown required
  • Blackberry – live motion planned Ã  no shutdown required
  • IM Applications (internal) including IntelliVIEW & Pythagoras Ã  live motion planned
  • Antivirus & Antispyware ePO – live motion planned Ã  no shutdown required
  • Enterprise Vault – live motion planned Ã  no shutdown required
  • Citrix access (access.qfcra.com). Web-interface, Token & BE – live motion planned Ã  no shutdown required
  • IT Help-desk Application, Op Manager h/w & application alerts, AD Audit, AD Manager Ã  will be shutdown
  • ObserveIT (RDC) Ã  will be shutdown
  • RMS (Rights Management Service) Ã  will be shutdown
  • Websense Web Filter Ã  if required, will be shutdown
  • Intranet Central Admin Ã  will be shutdown
This migration is mandatory as VMware ESXi 5.0; the next-generation hypervisor foundation, will offer improved security, increased reliability, and simplified hypervisor management.

Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns regarding this event (ref. change ID: 508).

Thanks and regards
Rinith
+775

Wednesday 13 June 2012

Recovery Tool for MS Outlook Data (.ost and .pst)

..recovered Data as seen in the above picture
Microsoft Outlook Crashed?? Don't worry, you can recover it using the Recovery Tool for outlook. We purchased this and tested, it works for both outlook data extensions.
Import .OST or .PST data file to the recovery tool, convert the recovered file to .pst and then finally import it back to outlook. Importing a .pst file back to Outlook is an easier task. However, if your laptop abruptly crashes when you are away from the domain/ office network and needs to rebuild the cached outlook data, recovery tool is the best option where you can recover just from the .ost cached data.
Recovery Tool for Outlook (filename: RecoveryToolboxForOutlookInstall) http://www.recoverytoolbox.com/download.html. There are lots of other recovery tools available for Office applications.
Recovery Toolbox for Exchange Server 2003-2007 http://www.edbrecover.com/
QR Code MS Outlook Data Recovery Tool
QR Code







Tuesday 12 June 2012

Mailbox Limit and Archiving plan in Outlook 2003-2010

OUTLOOK MAILBOX MAINTENANCE PLAN (2003/2010)

As communicated with the employees..
As part of IT Policy we will be imposing Mailbox quota limits to 500MB per user for all *** employees. Currently few users have crossed 1 Gigabyte mailbox size and others are galloping towards 1 GB. For this reason we have to regulate mailbox quota.

For info:
1000KB – 1MB; 1000MB – 1GB (one Gigabyte)
[Ex.: A normal notepad file or a word file with contents of 1000 letters will have a file size  of approx. 22KB only. A normal email size would be approx. 25-30KB and an email with attachment may vary from 30KB to over Gigabytes depending on the attachment file size]

Mailbox size is determined by the size of the folders inside it.
 

What happens when a limit is reached?   
Current mailbox restrictions are as follows: When total mailbox size reaches 450MB (450000KB) a warning will be issued from the System Administrator. When total mailbox size reaches 475MB (475000KB) users will no longer be able to send email. Finally, when total mailbox size reaches 500MB (500000KB) users will not be able to send or receive mail.

What makes the mailbox big?

Your mailbox is made up of folders. E-mail folders only are shown here (on the Go menu, click Mail). You can see all of the folders in your mailbox by clicking Folder List on the Go menu.


  Inbox.
  Other e-mail folders.

Your main e-mail folder is the Inbox. That's where e-mail gets delivered. Your Inbox is located inside of your mailbox along with the other folders that are created by Outlook to store information. Some of the other folders that contain e-mail include Deleted Items, Drafts, Outbox, and Sent Items. You may not even think of these as folders, but knowing how much space is being taken up by them is your first step towards keeping your mailbox trim.
Where does your emails reside?
Mailbox are stored on the server whereas Archive Folders and Personal Folders on your computer.

 Outlook messages can be kept on your own computer in a personal storage (PST) file. To get them there, you choose between two routes: personal folders or archive.

To store messages in a PST, you can use Personal Folders, you can use Archive Folders, or you can use both!




When you receive messages, they're sent to the Inbox. Typically, the Inbox is stored inside the Mailbox, along with Calendar, Contacts, and other folders. When you store messages locally, you send them to Archive Folders or to Personal Folders, separate data files that are outside the Mailbox. Outlook knows where to find them, but the server doesn't count them against you.
  
Archiving beyond 500MB limit is user’s responsibility. However, users who require backup of the PST files on Servers, have to inform IT Dept.

It's easy for a mailbox to grow to an uncontrollable size. Hence, make it a practice to delete attachments from the sent folders and deleted items. And delete unwanted attachments so that you save your quota.

Why to take a backup?

At the time of hard disk failures the backup files can be restored back to normalcy.
BACKUP IS INSURANCE TO YOUR FILES..!

XYZ Company Email Top Users




Procedures to Reduce Mailbox Size

Mailbox Management

As your mail storage grows you will need to manage your mailbox size. There are a number of things that you can do to assist in this maintenance. Listed below are current recommendations to help reduce the storage space. The reduction of used space can be accomplished by:
·         Saving the email attachment(s) to a file location on a local or networked drive,
·         Deleting items in various folders in your mailbox including the Sent Items folder and making sure that the Deleted Folder is purged or emptied,
·         Archiving your mailbox for long-term storage of important email messages.

Outlook Menu Bar

The Microsoft Outlook 2003 Menu Bar is located along the left-hand side of the screen when the program is opened. The graphic below shows the Menu Bar.




Just how big is my Mailbox? (Microsoft Outlook 2003)

  1. Click on Folder List in the Menu Bar located at the bottom left-hand side of the window. Depending how the it is configured the Folder List may be a button or a small icon.           
  2. Scroll to the bottom of the Folder List that will appear at the top of the Menu Bar. Click on the Folder Sizes link.

  1. The Folder Size window shows the total size of the entire mailbox and breaks down each part of the mailbox to show how much space each part of the mailbox uses. Use the scroll bar to see the complete list. Current mailbox restrictions are as follows: When total mailbox size reaches 450MB (450000KB) a warning will be issued from the System Administrator. When total mailbox size reaches 475MB (475000KB) users will no longer be able to send email. Finally, when total mailbox size reaches 500MB (500000KB) users will not be able to send or receive mail.

Follow procedures below to create more space in your mailbox if needed.

Saving Attachments to Another Location
To save attachments to another location follow these guidelines:
  • Clearing/saving attachments:
    • In the message with an attachment, right mouse click on the attachment, choose Save As.
    • Select the location where the attachment should be saved: local drive or your home directory.
    • The attachment is now saved and can be cleared from the message by selecting the attachment and pressing the Delete key on the keyboard.
    • Select File menu, Close and click on Yes when prompted "Do you want to save changes?"

Cleaning out Sent Items Folder
Many times the Sent Items Folder is overlooked. Every message that you send, including attachments, is placed in this folder. Be sure to delete these items when they are not needed.
 
Emptying Deleted Items
Messages in Deleted Items folder are still counted in the total mailbox size. Prompt deletion of unwanted message in this folder will help alleviate the space shortage on the server. Users should set up Microsoft Outlook 2003 so the Deleted Items folder is automatically emptied each time the program is closed. Follow the directions below to set up automatic deletion.
1.     With Microsoft Outlook 2003 open go to the Tools menu and select Options.
2.     Click on the Other tab. Make sure that the Empty the Deleted Items folder upon exiting box is checked. Click OK to close the box.

Recovering Deleted Items

Deleted items can be undeleted for up to 48 hours after deletion. To recover deleted items follow the procedures below.
1.     With Microsoft Outlook 2003 open click on the Deleted Items Folder in the Menu Bar.
2.     Go to the Tools menu and select Recover Deleted Items.
3.     A window will appear with all the items that have been deleted over the past 48 hours. Hold down the Control key and click on each item you wish to undelete. The Select All icon  will select every item in the list.
4.     Click the Recover Selected Items icon  to undelete the files.
5.     The undeleted files will be placed into the Deleted Items folder. Drag the files out of this folder and drop them onto another folder like the Inbox.

Archiving Your Mailbox
Archiving creates a folder on the hard drive of your computer that contains older messages that you do not wish to keep on the Exchange server. Outlook 2003 makes it very easy to access the archive folder. The following is a manual process that can be run to archive mail. See Auto Archiving Your Mailbox for instructions on automating this process on page seven.
1.     Open up Microsoft Outlook 2003.
2.     Go to the File menu and select Archive.
3.     Click the radio button next to Archive this folder and all subfolders. Scroll up in the window and click Mailbox – last name, first name. Use the pull down menu next to the box for Archive items older than and choose a date for the items you wish to keep. Type C:\Mail\archive.pst in the Archive file: box. Click on OK when done.
4.     The Menu Bar will now have a new folder called Archive Folder. Clicking the plus sign before this folder will expand it to reveal the contents.
5.     Now you can click on each portion of the Archive Folder to access old items.


Auto Archiving Your Mailbox
1.     Log into Microsoft Outlook 2003.
2.     Go to the Tools menu and select Options.
3.     Click on the Other tab and then click the Auto Archive button.

4.     Check the box next to Run AutoArchive and use the pull down menu to select how many days to wait between auto archive sessions. Where it says Clean out items older than the default time is 6 months. If you would like to change this value, use the arrows to change the number, and use the pull down menu to choose months, days, or weeks. In the Move old items to: box type C:\mail\archive.pst. (see next page for graphic)

For Outlook 2010:
                                      
           select Archive 

5.     The files will be placed into an Archive Folder in the Menu Bar as explained in the directions for Archiving Your Mailbox.