Active Directory Tip: Access External Website With The Same Domain Name As Your Internal Domain
It is often the case that companies use their external domain (i.e. enirtia.com) for their internal Active Directory domain, and this is completely fine, except when you want to access your website which is hosted on an external server.
Active Directory automatically sets up an internal DNS server for use on your network, and assumes that it is the Authorative server for the domain you used, which in our case here is “example.com”. When clients on your internal network ask your Active Directory DNS server for a lookup on example.com it is going to direct them to one of your domain controllers. If you request”www.enirtia.com” and you happen to have IIS running on one of those domain controllers you will see whatever the default website that is running on that server.
To get around this we need to add a redirect to your IIS server, a Host record to your internal DNS server, and a delegation to your DNS server, all of which are simple to do. These changes are based on the assumption that your external website is setup on external DNS servers with an “A” record pointing”www.enirtia.com” to the IP address of the server that is hosting your website, and that example.com without the “www” is setup with a CNAME record pointing at”www.enirtia.com“. If it is setup in the opposite manner this will not work.
Host Record:
First find out what the IP address is of the external web server if you do not already know it. Go to Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > DNS and locate example.com. Right-click and choose “New Host (A or AAAA)”. Type “www” into the name field, and the IP address of your external web server into the IP Address field. Click the “Add Host” button to save.
IIS Redirect:
To redirect “http://enirtia.com” to “http://www.enirtia.com we need to create a redirect in your IIS server. Go to Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Internet Information Services and locate the Default Web Site. Right-Click on the default web site, and choose Properties. Go to the Directory tab and setup a redirect to point to”www.enirtia.com”.
DNS Delegation:
To create a DNS Delegation you must know the names of external name servers servicing your domain name. Go to Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > DNS and locate example.com. Right-Click and choose “New Delegation”. Type www into the Delegated Domain field, click next and provide it with external authorative name servers for your domain name.
Windows 7, Now With Less Internet Explorer
On the MSDN Windows 7 Engineering blog, Jack Mayo – Program Manager for Windows Docs & Printing group – has an interesting post about how the forthcoming Windows 7 Public Release Candidate will feature an “On-Off” switch for many Microsoft applications that have traditionally been bundled with previous Windows releases. One of these applications is Internet Explorer 8.
Unlike the traditional Add/Remove Windows Components functionality, the switches will not fully remove the applications do to internal Windows and developer dependencies on components of the applications. Instead it merely deletes the “.exe” and any shortcuts for the applications. Should the user decide that they actually need the applications they can flip the switch back and regain full functionality.
The other applications & services that can be switched off are: Windows Media Player, Windows Media Center, Windows DVD Maker, Windows Search services, Handwriting recognition, Windows gadgets, fax and scan, and the XPS viewer and some other misc services.
This move is most likely to appease those examining Microsoft for Antitrust issues in the EU. Microsoft has long maintained that they are unable to extract the browser from the OS due to the way it is built, which was one of the sticking points in their US Antitrust case nearly a decade ago. While I do not agree with those that are claiming the bundling of IE with Windows is anti competitive, I do applaud Microsoft for giving users a choice, for a change. I think that it is their product and they should be able to do anything they want with it, short of putting technical roadblocks for 3rd parties developers to make their applications run on the OS. Users are fully capable of installing alternative products if they choose to do so.
Zimbra has 40 Million Paid Mailboxes
Venture Beat is reporting that Yahoo’s Zimbra has 40 Million Paid Email boxes, which is gives it more paid mailboxes than Google’s Free Gmail and it’s paying Apps (Gmail) For Your Domain customers, and puts it close behind AOL and Microsoft’s Hotmail services. While Zimbra’s users are not the same type of users as Gmail, AOL, and Hotmail’s users, in that Zimbra is not offering basic web mail services like the aforementioned services, they are offering something more significant in a full Groupware system with Calendaring, Email, Contacts, etc., and they are getting companies to pay for it, whereas the others, not so much. Much of Zimbra’s new found user base is due to the fact that Comcast has deployed Zimbra as it’s new email system for all of it’s broadband subscribers.
While Zimbra has made significant headway in aquiring new customers, they still have a lot to do to compete with Microsoft Exchange, with their biggest hurdle being acceptance by non-technical “office-type” users of using their own web mail interface over the traditional Outlook Interface. I ran into this head on when I replaced our existing Exchange 2003 Server with Zimbra. While the system was fairly stable, but less so than our Exchange server, their Desktop Connectors that linked with Outlook, Entourage, Apple Mail, and Apple iCal left much to be desired. These connectors were down right buggy and feature incomplete. With that said, if you can get your users to use their Zimbra Desktop Client or Web Client, the system was rock solid, and their Connector for Active Sync worked flawlessly.
I hope this milestone gets them noticed within the Yahoo corporate structure and gets them some more resources so that they do not get lost in the current Yahoo re org mess. I am still not convinced that Yahoo’s acquisition of Zimbra was a good move for either of the companies. As I have said before I still think that Apple should have bought Zimbra instead of creating their iCal Server.
It should be noted that I own stock in Yahoo.
Google Sync, Killing MS Exchange One Beta At a Time
Today Google launched their new Google Sync Product that allows you to sync your Google Calendar and Gmail Contacts to your Windows Mobile and iPhone devices. To do this they have licensed Microsoft’s Activesync protocol, just as Apple did to allow the iPhone to sync to a Microsoft Exchange server.
This is significant because it immediately opens up the majority of existing smart phone owners to functionality previously only offered to corporate users of Exchange servers, at no cost. Which makes the service ideal for smaller companies and Independent Consultant/Freelancer types. What is even more ideal about the service for these types of people is that it also works with Google Apps for your Domain. Can you say free Exchange Server?
The second reason that this is significant is that it virtually negates the need for Apple’s MobileMe service, as it provides virtually the same functionality at no cost. I am sure Apple is not pleased about this.
As great as this service is, there are some downsides:
-The Activesync protocol only allows you to setup one Activesync account per mobile device. So if you have a Smartphone that is already syncing to your corporate Exchange server, you cannot setup another to sync to Google. This is not Google’s fault, nor is it the device manufacturer’s fault, this is the way Microsoft designed Activesync. In many of the comments on Google’s blog posting about this new service people are laying blame at Google and Apple’s door, when it does not belong there.
-It does not use Activesync to deliver email. At this time Google is still using IMAP or POP to deliver mail to devices. This is a downside because it makes the process of getting all of your data to your device more convoluted, possibly more problem prone and bandwidth intensive.
-By using Activesync there is no way to sync Google Docs. While this may not sound significant it would be helpful to be able to sync documents and files over to your mobile device. This is functionality that Microsoft will be making available shortly through their Live Mesh service that is currently in beta.
-It does not sync Tasks. One of the core functions of any personal information management system is the ability to create and organize tasks. Activesync already has functionality to sync tasks from an Exchange-based account natively, but Google has not implemented functionality to sync your Gmail tasks as of yet.
-It does not work on Google’s own G1 Android phone. While it appears that Google has licensed Activesync for pushing data to mobile devices from its services, it has not implemented Activesync on the Android platform, which means that Android users are out in the cold on this one.
None of the downsides listed are deal breakers in my mind for the average user, and following in the grand Google tradition of release then iterate, I am sure that they will be able to work through many of these issues in short order.
