Revealing Blocked Outlook Attachments

Ever since Outlook 2000 SP1, Microsoft has felt it necessary to protect users from themselves by blocking potentially unsafe attachments from being executed. Outlook’s behavior is to receive the email and prevent the user from opening the MIME attachment by displaying a message.

Ironically, there’s no mechanism inside of Outlook’s UI or options to disable this feature. It’s a registry hack, and I’m often asked how to turn the feature off, or, to disable the blocking feature on specific file types. I had a need for the hack myself recently, so here it is again:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;829982

As the article suggest, this is a registry edit; people comfortable with editing the registry should be able to perform the steps with ease. If you’re not comfortable with editing the registry – or don’t know what that means – try to locate a computer pro to help you out. This hack will allow Outlook to permanently display attachments with file extensions you specify.

R

Exchange SMTP Forwards

Minor thought today: I had always thought outbound SMTP mail forwarding rules in Exchange had to be enabled from the client through an Outlook configuration. Found out today how to do a mail forward through creating an Active Directory contact, then, setup forwarding on the mailbox to the contact – overcoming the fact that AD didn’t see an external SMTP address. Anyhow, I was glad to find the Q article on the subject:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;281926

R

Google and Amazon – Head to Head

Amazon’s new search engine, A9, (www.a9.com) is now available for public consumption. A student pointed me in the direction this evening; apparently A9 uses extensive metadata to tailor the search experience, including “remembering” the context of your last searches to increase relevance. You can also include your own notes in the search results and review them at later dates. I actually found it very friendly, great UI, plenty of content – really nice use of screen space. But I was a little surprised to find “searches enhanced by Google” at the bottom of one of my searches in the graphics section… what was really cool was a pop-up enhancement that provided information on the website with a mouseover.

Does A9 signal a contender in the search engine wars? Google, a $54 billion market cap company against Amazon, a $18 billion MC? Who has the better algorithm? You be the judge.

R

Responding to the Churchill Essay

So troublesome it is to find ourselves in a retro-McCarthyism over Churchill’s essay, Some People Push Back that the governor of Colorado has asked for Churchill’s dismissal; only recently did Churchill concede his chair position of the University’s ethnic studies program.

The fallout of the situation appears, to me, larger than that of Churchill’s opinions, in that heads of state and Colorado’s Board of Regents feel it so appropriate to censor the opinions of their faculty – attention paid solely to the response towards the opinion than of the opinion itself – the irony of which Churchill must agonize.

Contrary to the public fervor, Churchill’s opinion doesn’t scare me; I was raised in an era where descenting opinion and questioning authority were promising things. On the other hand, college boards and government officials whom take action to censor educated opinion terrifies.

If the opinions of one educator are to be silenced, what’s next: economic instructors compelled to instruct the benefits of enormous budget deficits and foreign trade imbalances because it grains against the fashionable? Poli-sci instructors frowned upon if they fail to construct neo-con ideology into their syllabus? At what point does patriotism blind and at what point will the electorate choose to do anything about it? I wonder when I’ll begin receiving guidelines on curriculum from the Department of Homeland Security?

Historians mull over the conditions in Germany following the ratification of Treaty of Versailles and the public opinion that roiled to bring Hitler to power – efforts taken by the Nazi’s to secure their hold on power were to round up intellectuals, burn books, and silence opinion. Too bad Bush continues to underfund No Child Left Behind… perhaps we wouldn’t be doomed to repeat history if our children were to learn something about it.

R

Cool Tool That Rules

Found a fantastic tool for diagnosing common DNS-related issues: www.dnsstuff.com. I was troubleshooting an MX-record problem at a client’s today and found its email routing test extremely helpful in identifying a firewall constraint. Highly recommended!

Russell Mickler, CISSP MCSE
Principal, Mickler & Associates
www.micklerandassociates.com
(C) 2005. All Rights Reserved.

ruup4it?

Of interest for anyone with teenage kids – ran across a cipher for teen cell phone and IM lingo (http://www.netlingo.com/). It will allow you to decipher all of crazy acronyms that kids use during their chat sessions. They even have a hard copy, e-book, book on tape, and a searchbar plugin that allows for instant ciphering.

Eh – SWDYT? SDEWBA.

Russell Mickler, CISSP MCSE

Principal, Mickler & Associates

www.micklerandassociates.com

(C) 2005. All Rights Reserved.

Cell Architecture Debuts – End of the 80×86?

IBM announced the commercial release of their Cell microprocessor capable of simultaneously threading ten instructions unlike Intel’s Hyperthreading technology that emmulates a dual-mode SMP platform. According to the linked article, the chip has nearly twice the transistors of a P4 (235 million over 125 million) and can operate at clock speeds exceeding 4 ghz.

Are we ready for MPP for the desktop? Will the cell replace the reliable 80×86 product line? Massively Parallel Processed executions were something reserved for mainframes and supercomputers. Now we’re talking about a compartmentalized IC capable of running multiple protected instances of multiple o/s’ – Linux, Windows, Panther, one box, oh my.

But just how fast do we really need to word process or browse anyway? The article talks about the chip finding its way into game consoles and home appliances. Can you imagine, Jak III – massively parallel processed? Dynamic photo-realism must be right around the corner. I wonder how much heat that thing gives off?

Well the good news is that this may force a change in the technology sector and prompt migration and investment in the new technology, finally giving corporate IT departments a reason to upgrade. It may also drive innovation in the industry to release faster and more powerful platforms at lower prices.

The bad news is that corporations would have to invest in fewer computing platforms or could consolidate processing to save datacenter footprint costs or maintenance overheads. Maybe it would actually drive corporations to migrate their FORTRAN and COBOL applications from 45-year-old platforms to the new platform? Perhaps the need for cheap speed in that category of computing will force a revolution in software conversions and hardware deployments?

Who can say. I think I could wait on the supercomputer game console, though. It would be a shame if my PlayStation outpaced the MIPS we use to run a company.

Russell Mickler, CISSP MCSE

Principal, Mickler & Associates

www.micklerandassociates.com

(C) 2005. All Rights Reserved.