If you check the Eventlog, do you find these events?

The MAPI call ‘OpenMsgStore’ failed with the following error:
The information store could not be opened.
The MAPI provider failed.
MAPI 1.0
ID no: 8004011d-0289-00000000

For more information, click http://www.microsoft.com/contentredirect.asp.

Failed to open mailbox ‘/o=CONTOSO/ou=First Administrative Group/cn=Recipients/cn=JohnDoe’ in mailbox store ‘/o=CONTOSO/ou=First Administrative Group/cn=Configuration/cn=Servers/cn=ContosoMailServer/cn=Microsoft Private MDB81234567′ on server ‘ContosoMailServer’.
Error: The information store could not be opened.
The MAPI provider failed.
MAPI 1.0
ID no: 8004011d-0289-00000000

For more information, click http://www.microsoft.com/contentredirect.asp.

Quickly check if these users are not disabled.  Mailboxes with disabled users as associated account cannot be moved.  The workarounds are to enable the user accounts – which is not that desireable for your company’s Security staff – or assign SELF as the associated account.

More info at Microsoft.

• Go into the Exchange 2007 Management Console (or Shell)
• Find the mailbox in the Recipient Configuration
• Write down the server the mailbox is stored
• Disconnect the mailbox from the original AD user
• Get a list of disconnected mailboxes on the server you wrote down

Only to find that the mailbox is not listed. Panic!

Did you forget to check the Deletion Settings on the mailbox store? No, on second glance they are the default 30 days, so the disconnected mailbox should still be available.

But, wait… On Exchange 2003, didn’t you run the Cleanup Agent to find disconnected mailboxes?

No such a thing in Exchange 2007, or is there?

Yes there is.  Clean-Mailboxdatabase is your cmdlet and friend.  Run Clean-Mailboxdatabase <databasename> in an Exchange Management Shell and reload your list of disconnected mailboxes.

You saved the day!  Or at least Exchange saved your job .

So next time:

1. Get-Mailbox john@contoso.com | Format-Table Name, Database
2. Disable-Mailbox john@contoso.com
3. Clean-MailboxDatabase “Mailbox Server\Mailbox Database Storagegroup Name”
4. Connect-Mailbox -Database “Mailbox Database” -Identity “John Peoples”   -User john@fabrikam.com

One such location are the license plate lights.  BMW employs for all their recent models now a version with two integrated LED bulbs which give a whiter kind of light, even with a hint of blue.

Tuning and styling fanatics of course wanted to mimic this new style (and the use of LEDs on competitors such as Audi’s headlights) and a few aftermarket options are already available for the BMW range.

However, if you get the correct parts, the OEM BMW parts can be fitted on cars which did not come with the LED versions of the license plate lights.  This can work for pre-facelift 1-series and pre-EfficientDynamics 3-series cars, but also for 6-series and even the previous model Z4.

People at the z-roadster.net forum were so kind enough to draft a manual on outfitting your Z4 with these OEM LED lights.  The text is in german, but the included pictures make the modification self-explanatory.

Get the manual: Install OEM LED license plate lights.

The steps to do this are:

1. Get to the secret settings menu.  You do this by going into the Settings menu and holding the MENU button down for about 10 seconds.  When you see this menu, scroll down until you see Perspective where you can select whether you want this option activated or not
2. Go out of this menu and go into the NAVIGATION menu.  In the Viewpoints, you now have three choices: north, driving direction or perspective mode.  Select the last one and see the map turn into 3D.

Visiting Canada, I found a digital pen called the Mobile Digital Scribe from IOGear (GPEN200N) for 99$ which did not need special paper, but worked with a special pen and a sensor you could place on any surface, to register all notes I would write on paper.  With the simple included software, I could easily integrate my handwritten notes into OneNote.

Not long later,  however, I switched to a MacBook Pro running OSX and was unable to use the digital pen any longer, since there was no such support on Mac.  I could use the device connected to my MacBook as a mouse, but not really for taking notes.

Up until I did some research…

The pen IOGear solds is actually one of those things that are produced en masse in China.  After some searching, I found out that a company called Pegasus sells almost the same pen, but with a OSX driver included and available on their website.

To get it to work, you need to download the firmware package on the Pegasus website and apply it to your digital pen reader.  Install also the NoteTaker software, in which you can configure that every time you connect the reader to your Mac, it will upload the handwritten notes to your Mac in TIFF format.

I’ve been trying Kodiak now for a few hours on OS X and although it looks pretty and helps me visualize my test environment running on VMware Server 2, I am still unable to use the console.  Kodiak’s documentation is sparse, which is not helped by it’s current apply-and-you-might-ever-get-allowed-to-the-beta program.  But I hear positive comments when running it on Windows, so if you want to try Kodiak out, don’t wait and head over to their website to register yourself into the beta program.

BlueBear Kodiak 0.0.3 screenshot

One small reminder: if you want to connect to your VMware host (let it be ESX, ESXi or VMware Server 2), make sure you use the same server address as you currently use in your VMware Infrastructure Client: servername-or-ip:portnumber.  It saves you the humiliation of running into error #2032, which actually means that AIR and Kodiak is not able to connect to your VMware environment.

And I want my console to work!

Update: Bluebear came out with 0.0.4 of their Kodiak management software, with some SSL modifications that would make working with self signed certificates much easier.

What I missed in the documentation of MDT 2008 is a way for me as a consultant to set up an MDT environment with sources, settings and images, and being able to deploy these sources, settings and images to a client’s MDT.  This because most clients have similar set up environments, with all similar starting sources.  It is no use to send the first half day of your consulting job importing sources you have already imported numerous times for other clients and yourself.

Ben Hunter described in 2007 a procedure he called hydratation, where he set up an BDD 2007 environment and uses this source environment to hydrate client environments with sources and settings.

This procedure is remarkably similar to what is needed to set up an MDT 2008 environment.  Once your MDT 2008 environment is to your liking, you can simply copy the Distribution folder on the newly created Distribution folder at your client’s MDT environment.  Make sure to change all product keys and customer specific data, and recreate the builds necessary.

This procedure is also useful if you want to copy the customer’s MDT onto another machine.

1. Install MDT 2008 and the Windows Automated Installation Kit (WAIK)
2. Create a new distribution share directory
3. Copy the files from your source distribution share directory over to your newly created distribution share directory
4. Set up the necessary deployment points, copying the settings from your source environment

The Intravee is an innovative piece of hardware that enables BMW’s of the previous generation to accept Ipods as sound source, and use the radio and steering controls to navigate through the Ipod’s structure.  This Intravee enables E39 5-series, E46 3-series, the first model of X3′s and the first model of Z4 roadster and coupe owners to enjoy their Ipod in their car.

The Intravee is actually not an Ipod-adapter per-se: The Intravee only acts as an adapter between the BMW media protocol, and the AlpineNet protocol to transmit commands and track info back and forth.  The actual Ipod-adapter is something such as the Alpine KCA-420i which enables an Ipod to talk AlpineNet and vice-versa.  Keep in mind that the KCA-420i has limitations such as being only able to show up to 511 albums and 511 artists, which means that if you take your whole collection of music on the road, you might not be able to select ZZ Top as artist out of the menu.

Contrary to the other models which have cd changers and navigational computers mounted in the trunk compartment, the electronics of a Z4 roadster are placed in between the two seats, under the covering that runs out of the gearbox and drivetrain tunnel.  This hampers the installation of the Intravee and the Alpine adapter, in such a way that large parts of the interior of a Z4 roadster need to be removed before access is gained to the existing cabling to enable the Ipod adapter.

As a sort of reference, I have gathered the Alpine CD Changer Installation documentation from BMW which describes how to install an Alpina CD Changer, including removing and restoring the interior parts that hide the electronics in between the seats.  This gives access to the cables necessary to connect the Intravee and the Alpina KCA-420i adaptor as described in the Intravee Quick Install Guide.

Update: Another option is to access the necessary cables through the trunk, as explained in this thread on z4-forum.com