Microsoft released the long-awaited update to Exchange 2007 last Thursday.  SP1 includes many improvements and is a beefy download at 900 MB; assuming the bulk comes from the MUI packs. Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 (SP1) has been designed specifically to help meet the challenges of any business and the needs of all the different groups with a stake in the messaging system. Exchange Server 2007 SP1 is a mission-critical communications tool that enables employees to be more productive and access their information anywhere and anytime while providing a messaging system that enables rich, efficient access to e-mail, calendar items, voice mail, and contacts. For the administrator, Exchange Server 2007 SP1 provides advanced protection options against e-mail security threats, such as spam and viruses, as well as the tools to help manage internal compliance and high availability needs. The addition of Standby Continuous Replication (SCR) is welcomed by…

Found a very cool plugin in the Windows Live Gallery that lets you add Polaroid style pictures to blog posts within Windows Live Writer.  You can add drop shadows, captions, and even tilt the photo.  The plugin is available here.

This dialog box appears if you attempt to open or create a client project on a Universal Naming Convention (UNC) path. By default, a UNC path is not a trusted location for a project. Your project might not run correctly when you attempt to debug or run from this location. If you need to work with code inside Visual Studio that is located on a network or remote location (non-trusted project location), you can modify the .NET Code Access Security Policy using the .NET Framework Configuration Tool and the Code Access Security Policy Tool. MSDN has an article on what’s required to add UNC or network locations as trusted project locations. Link: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bs2bkwxc(VS.80).aspx

The last few weeks have been very busy with work.  Last week I was in Las Vegas for the Exchange Connections Conference where I attended sessions mainly focused on Exchange 2007.  Lots of cool new things with the new version of Exchange, and lots of things to be expected for Service Pack 1. This week I was in Redmond presenting on Windows Storage Server at the Microsoft Partner Solution Center.  I’m sitting in the Seattle Airport composing some blog posts and catching up on email right now.  I’m taking the red-eye back home, so I’ll spend part of Friday recovery and getting some more work done.

I’ve had an XM subscription for quite some time now.  One thing that they started a little while back was the ability to listen to most of their stations via the Internet.  If you have a monthly XM account for a receiver, then you automatically get access to XM Radio Online. From their website, you can login to XM Radio Online.  It opens a new window with their player interface.  The problem with this is that it’s another browser window and if IE crashes for some odd reason (and it happens), then you lose your session…Plus things get cluttered. Tonight I discovered that in Windows Media Player 11 (and I believe version 10 does this as well), that you can to the “Online Stores” inside media player.  XM Radio is there, and you can login from within Media Player and consume the same XM Radio Online experience, but through Media…