Of the last 6 posts on a tech-centric blog from the left, all of them have been .Text related in one way or another.  Chrissy has gone nuts tweaking her SQL triggers to combat the latest round of comment spam.  I’m starting to believe she had it figured out a long time ago – the database is where to combat the problem.  Sure, you’re constantly playing the “keep up” game much like anit-virus vendors play with virus creators.  However, it’s completely transparent to users and is accessible to even those readers who may be blind (unlike CAPTCHAs).  It also is better for handling the new sorts of attacks which seemed to be launched programatically rather than through the ASP.NET forms interface.

It’s worth a look if you’re running .Text – or, Scott, if you’re currently developing the next version of the software.  ;-)

• Even more on .Text blog spam with possible solutions.
• .Text Anti-referral Spam Trigger
• Referer Fun
• More about the trigger update
• .Text anti-comment spam trigger update
• http_referer telling half-truths

There’s some great work, there, folks.  Check it out.

This is the first I had heard of “Beagle” – with all of the buzz surrounding desktop search I thought this would have been common knowledge.  Or am I just living in a cave?  Without knowing more about how it works and the underlying architecture, I have to say it seems to be your typical desktop search application.  These things are all the rage now, you understand.  The videos are worth a look – I was very suprised by the concept of “live query” demonstrated in this video – http://nat.org/demos/beagle-2.html.  A neat concept:  search results that change dynamically as content is modified, deleted or created on the machine.  Wonder what the overhead of such a feature might be, though?

http://primates.ximian.com/~miguel/archive/2005/Jan-25.html

Nat has directed, produced and performed in a series of videos on Beagle, the desktop search tool for the Linux desktop that is being cooked by those in the Gnome, Mono and Novell communities.

The videos are here. There are also a couple of Mono demos.

Beagle was originally demostrated on the 28th of June in the GUADEC conference in Norway.

Ever wondered how much gold flake was actually inside a bottle of Goldschlager?  How about how many blank CDs you could label with a Sharpie?  Curious as to how long a pair of D cell batteries can power a flashlight?  Well, answers to all these questions and more are available to you at http://www.cockeyed.com/inside/howmuchinside.html.   This team of expert experimenters has gone through thick and thin to find out exactly how much “stuff” is inside various things.  The site has even been translated into various languages by its fans.  You’re able to even sponsor your own study should there be something you’re insanely curious in knowning that isn’t already listed…

This is a pseudo-followup from my previous NetWare migration post.  For customers looking to migrate from GroupWise to Exchange server (or, in the interest of equal-time, to another mail system…) have more resources at hand than they probably thought.  Many times I speak with customers who are not sure of what kind of support Microsoft provides and what resources are available to assist with their migration and coexistence strategies.

I’m amazed at the number of people who don’t know that we include a very good set of tools “in the box” with Exchange Server.  In Exchange Server 2000 and Exchange Server 2003, there is something called the “Exchange Connector for GroupWise”.  This handy little piece of software allows a customer to maintain synchronization between the GroupWise Address Book and Active Directory.  This allows users in one system to see users in another system as if they were all using the same mail system.  In addition, the connector will route mail from one system to another – including tasks and calendar items.  Even free/busy information is replicated across this connector allowing a user in one system to query the calendar of a user in the other system and find an appropriate meeting time.  And when you’re ready to migrate users from GroupWise to Exchange, you can use the built-in migration utility to do just that!  An incredibly oversimplified view of the process looks a little like this:

• Install/Configure destination Exchange environment.
• Install/Configure Exchange Connector for GroupWise.
• Make sure that directory synchronization, mail flow and free/busy information is correctly going both ways over the connector.
• Migrate users from GroupWise to Exchange either one at a time or in groups.  During the migration process, users in one system should still be able to get mail to/from users in the other system seamlessly.
• When the migration is complete, the GroupWise system and the Connector components can be removed.

You can find all sorts of migration and inter-operability resources for Exchange and GroupWise at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/exchange/2003/library/interopmig.mspx. 

So, once customers find this out they’re very optimistic…until I tell them the “gotchas”.  For one, we only “officially” support GroupWise 5.5 and earlier with the tool.  This is an unfortunate oversight on the product group’s part (in my humble opinion!) and is due to be rectified very soon from what I hear.  The tool will still work with GroupWise 6.X installations in most instances based on my experience – except that HTML-based mail doesn’t always get converted properly by the connector.  The “in the box” tools also won’t do things like migrate personal address books or GroupWise Archives.  It’s the 80% rule, folks.  Build into the product what 80% of the world needs and count on a strong ecosystem of partners to come up with the other 20%. 

That’s just what two companies, Wingra Technologies and CompuSven specialize in doing.  Both have migration software that bridges the gap between what’s in the box and what more sophisticated customers need.  Both also, according to their website, support newer versions of GroupWise.  They provide nice features like address book and archive conversion as well as better reporting and scheduling capabilities for administrators during the migration process.  If what’s “in the box” doesn’t do it for you, you should check these additional resources out.