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SMTP, hotels, SMTP proxies and secure SMTP

by | Mar 25, 2008 | evilzenscientist, Uncategorized

Most hotel internet connections use an outbound SMTP proxy to store and forward email.

I’m never happy with that – it means that my mail could be delayed/lost/corrupted/tampered with/read on the way.

[Note: I know – SMTP is SMTP – it’s not secure; it’s like writing a postcard – but if I can avoid that proxy – it’s one less set of eyes..]

I’ve now configured Thunderbird to connect to a high port that’s NATted back down to port 25; I’ve also forced TLS to the mail server.

In theory that should keep my outbound mail (or really internal mail that only sits on my web server) a bit safer.

Benefits

by | Mar 21, 2008 | evilzenscientist, Uncategorized

(Not a rant; I’ve not had the Kool Aid or the Lobotomy yet..)

Really only of interest to US readers – those in Europe probably have no idea of the context here.

My 16 month old boy needed tympanostomy tubes (ear tubes or ear grommets) to drain off fluid from a recurring ear infection. A five minute procedure – but it does involve day surgery and a general anesthetic.

My previous health care benefits were excellent – friends in Utah kept telling us we had incredible insurance – with good coverage, choice and a reasonable deductible and co-pay. Even so we estimated that we would end up being around $750 out of pocket for the ear tubes.

Microsoft Health care is fully funded. No deduction from my pay; no co-pay; no deductible. Incredible.

Before I joined Microsoft everyone I knew who had joined raved about the benefits. Now I know it’s true.

Take a look at this: http://www.viewmyworld.com/ – especially the first video on Microsoft Perks.

SNAG-1207

My changing desktop – from Novell to Microsoft

by | Mar 20, 2008 | evilzenscientist, Uncategorized

So what changed between running a laptop at Novell and Microsoft?

Desktop OS

Firstly my Novell laptop was primarily a Vista machine. I’ve been using Vista as my primary desktop since November 2006. It’s helped build a better ZENworks Configuration Management.

Microsoft is obviously standardised on Vista.

Collaboration

Email is the killer. I do miss a lot of the advanced features of GroupWise – particularly the email status tracking. Outlook/Exchange won’t show me the delivery/read/deleted status. GroupWise was a killer in knowing that your ‘red’ emails had been delivered and deleted without being opened.

I don’t miss GWIM at all; I still use Pidgin (formerly GAIM) as my IM client – running plugins to all of the major networks. I do really like the Unified Communications via Office Communicator and Outlook. One thing that Microsoft IT has done well is brought together IM, email, fax, voice and voice messaging into a single place.

Applications

Obviously most of the Microsoft internal sites are IE only. (Great UI, great user experience – but lots of ActiveX). I’m also running Firefox 3 Beta 4 – that’s my personal preference.

No OpenOffice – that’s a given; one thing that did surprise me was that everyone is using the newer Office 2007 doc formats; even to outside people.

Network and access

Wow. I was really impressed by the IT organisation. IPv6 on the wire; IPsec everywhere; smartcard and certificate security for wireless and remote access; Network Access Controls running with quarantine.

Certainly it’s given me some new ideas for my home network 🙂