Continue reading »]]> This update fixes some issues related to Office 365 / Lync Online. No changes related to Lync on premise deployments.

• 2543532  Credential prompts occur when you sign in to Lync 2010 by using the Lync Online service

• 2543531  Lync 2010 does not authenticate after you resume the computer from hibernation

Details and download here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2540951

Download the Lync.msp x86 package now.

Download the Lync.msp X64 package now.

This replaces the earlier April CU2 client update, so if you haven’t got to that yet just use the latest update.

Continue reading »]]> I’ve just been doing some testing between our Lync On-Premise installation and Office365 Lync Online with Thomas Lee (who is all over Office365 information)

The information about implies that Lync Online, once you choose Open Federation on your web admin console, will federate with any On-Prem Lync installation that also has open federation. We found this not to be the case. Our system is Open federation and already federated to Microsoft (not that that appears relevant), but initially adding contacts didn’t give presence.

Initially no presence

The solution is that you need to add a new Hosting Provider for Lync Online.

By default there are 3 Providers

To add Lync Online either click the new hosting provider,

Or to be quicker launch the Lync Management shell and run the command:

New-CSHostingProvider –identity LyncOnline –ProxyFqdn sipfed.online.lync.com –Enabled $True

Once you refresh the Lync Control Panel you should see your new hosting provider

Once the CMS has had a minute or two to sync, everything worked fine

Credit where credit is due, I found the solution here

So it seems On-Prem deployments will need to add this hosting provider to allow anyone using Office365 to federate.

Continue reading »]]> I came across these great videos from Brent Whichel’s Office-411.com , with Mike Gannotti . Full credit goes to those guys.

They do a complete demo of various Microsoft apps on the ExoPC Windows Slate

Here are the Lync  highlights, more videos and the full article is here

Moving from playing Angry Birds to a Lync Video Call

Working with Lync and SharePoint People Search

Presenting with remote attendees using Lync

Transferring a Lync call on the Tablet to a mobile

Again, check out the full article and great site here

Continue reading »]]>  

I do a decent amount of traveling for my job, while it can be a chore at times, one of the good things about it is keeping up to date and learning about new tech via podcasts.

I use the great Podcaster on the iPhone. It will check and download podcasts in t he background, as well as streaming over Wifi or 3G (watch your data usage on t 3G if you are limited). It makes life a lot easier than trying to use itunes (how can apple make something as good as the iPhone and as bad as itunes? )

So here is my current top 10 favourite technology podcasts, covering security, data centre, virtualisation, PowerShell, Microsoft and the general technology news. Don’t read too much into the order, take a look at the topics for what might interest you. I’ve also included the mp3 RSS feeds, as sometimes there are a little difficult to find

1. Infosmack

http://infosmackpodcasts.com/

http://infosmack.podbean.com/feed/

Covering Storage, Data Centre, Virtualisation and Enterprise technology. The hosts Greg Knieriemen, Marc Farley and Christina Weil have a really good dynamic, making even enterprise storage news worth listening to. They also have some great guests.

2. Security Now

http://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm

http://leo.am/podcasts/sn/

Great podcast on all things security. Giving you a rundown of current security issues and patches, but much more interesting is the commentary and deep dives on security related topics.

3. Windows Weekly

http://twit.tv/ww

http://leoville.tv/podcasts/ww.xml

Another podcast from the TWIT network. This really should be called Microsoft Weekly, but that’s not at catchy is it. Covering Microsoft news including Windows, Server and Windows Phone. Again, great commentary on current events.

4. Packet Pushers

http://packetpushers.net/

http://feeds.packetpushers.net/PacketPushersPodcast

A mainly networking podcast. Talking switching, routing and Date Centre.

5. RunAs Radio

http://www.runasradio.com/default.aspx

http://feeds.feedburner.com/RunasRadio

30 minute podcasts on a single tech topic with some great guests.

6. VMware Communities Roundtable

http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=19367

http://recordings.talkshoe.com/rss19367.xml

I don’t have as much to do with VMware as I used to, but I still like to keep up on the news around their products. One of the great things about VMware is the strength of the community around their products. Also proof that a good podcast doesn’t need to be overly complex, this is a dial-in, minimal editing affair.

7. Get-Scripting

http://get-scripting.blogspot.com/

http://feeds.feedburner.com/Get-scripting

On of two PowerShell Podcasts. With plenty of good guests and real world examples of PowerShell in use.

8. PowerScripting Podcast

http://powerscripting.wordpress.com/

http://feeds.feedburner.com/PowerScripting

Another Great PowerShell podcast. PowerShell is one of the areas where a Microsoft technology matches VMware in terms of community and social media.

9. This Week in Tech (TWIT)

http://twit.tv/295

http://leoville.tv/podcasts/twit.xml

More from the TWIT network, this is a weekly roundup of the tech news. Can ramble on sometimes, but worth a listen to get up to date on the weeks events.

10. This Week in Google (TWIG)

Another TWIT podcast with a deceptive name. It’s more like this week in cloud. With a mainly Google focus, this is interesting especially with the current changes in Google.

Some bonus podcasts also worth a look

4 podcasts on the top 10 come from the TWIT network. They have a lot more shows besides what I have listed and the site is worth a look to see if there are any other topics they cover that you might be interested in (such as iPad, Science, Open Source, Mac).

vSoup Podcast

http://vsoup.net/

http://vsoup.net/?feed=podcast

A nice virtualisation podcast with a more European feel than the standard American output and some interesting guests.

Chinwag with Mike Laverick

http://www.rtfm-ed.co.uk/category/chinwag/

http://www.rtfm-ed.co.uk/podcasts/podcast.xml

Mike talks to end users and vendors around various virtualisation topics. Some great information and perspective from smaller vendors

This Week in Computer Hardware

http://twit.tv/twich

http://leo.am/podcasts/twich

Another from the TWIT network, sometimes it’s all what’s the fastest GPU this week, but also covers some interesting hardware topics.

Continue reading »]]> Lync 2010 Client Updates

Lync 2010 April 2011 CU2 KB2496325

Download the Lync.msp x86 package now.

Download the Lync.msp X64 package now.

Issues KB2496325 resolves

Lync 2010 Attendee Hotfix KB 2500438 (Admin level install)

Lync 2010 Attendee Hotfix KB 2500440 (User level install)

Lync 2010 Attendant Hotfix KB 2496326

Lync 2010 Group Chat Hotfix KB 2500446

Lync 2010 Phone Edition (IP Phones)

Polycom CX700 and LG-Nortel IP Phone 8540 7577.250

This cumulative update fixes the following issues:

Aastra 6721ip and Aastra 6725ip 7577.250

Issues that this update fixes

Polycom CX500, Polycom CX600 and Polycom CX3000 7577.250

This cumulative update fixes the following issues:

Lync Server Updates (only applicable to Group Chat Server)

Lync 2010 Group Chat Admin Tool Hotfix KB 2500445

Lync Server 2010 Group Chat Server Hotfix KB 2500447

Issues that this update fixes

Continue reading »]]>  

Here is a how to on upgrading a Snom phone from the standard Snom firmware to the OCS compatible firmware. I’m not sure what the distribution terms are on the firmware, but your Snom dealer or Microsoft Voice partner should be able to help you with getting access to the latest firmware. I won’t be posting a direct link here unfortunately.

It looks like you can register here to get the firmware http://www.snom.com/en/ocs/

According to Snom, “Snom OCS edition” is compatible with the snom300, snom320, snom360, snom370, snom820, snom870 and snom MeetingPoint.

This Snom pdf also goes over the steps, and how to do a mass deployment using DHCP options. This will be the route to go if you’re doing more than a few phones.

http://www.snom.com/fileadmin/redakteure/docu/snom_OCS-Admin_101124%5B2%5D%5B1%5D.pdf

It’s worth knowing that Snom will ship the phones with the OCS firmware preloaded, which makes life a lot easier.

A note about features and functionality of the Snom OCS firmware

It should be noted that despite Lync logos all over the snom website, currently the firmware is certified compatible with OCS, see here. They works just fine with Lync for basic features, but doesn’t recognise some of the newer Lync features. Compatibility with newer Lync features is on the Snom roadmap. It is also worth noting that management of the handsets\updates is completely separate to the inbuilt Lync management for Polycom and Aastra IP handsets, and the handset use experience is considerably different between snom and the “Optimised for Lync” handsets.

How to update a Snom phone to the OCS firmware

The phone should be on at least the snom version 7 firmware. If not you can follow the “automatic update” process here to update it.

Plug the phone in to a port where it can gain a reachable DHCP IP address

Click through these options to get to the NR screen, if you are asked for an account name just put anything in to get past that field

Use the down arrow to scroll to IP address

Browse to the IP address

The phone downloads new firmware from a web server. I have already uploaded the firmware bin file to the default site on Lync (by dropping it into the wwwroot). It might be better on a separate web server. Snom will also provide a direct HTTP link to the firmware, but that may only be for partners(?). See the link at the start of this article to get hold of the firmware. At the time of writing snom300-OCS-8.5.8-SIP-f.bin was the latest version.

You can go to this URL manually to verify it is working

On the phone web GUI. Go to software update and input the update URL, then hit “load”

The phone will prompt you to confirm, hit the tick

You will see the phone loading the file

It should reboot to the following

At this point, go back to the Web GUI (The IP is likely to remain the same, but you can confirm again on the handset if necessary). The look and feel should be different (if not hit F5 to refresh)

Do not enter any data yet, Click software update and RESET

Confirm the reset:

The phone should reset again,

Now set the Time zone and dial tone via the phone.

Now on the Web GUI you should enter the account data. For a new user create an account in AD and enable the user to Lync/OCS

When you hit save the phone should login

Note the display name is taken from the AD display name, so you may want to shorten this to fit the screen.

Continue reading »]]>  

Recently one of the guys on twitter (Simon Leyland) asked about Lync/OCS support for partially sighted users. Previously working for a Cisco partner this was something that came up more than once, I knew there was some support in Lync but thought it would be good to take a closer look.

Microsoft produce a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template or VPAT to document their compliance with American Federal accessibility standards. Here is a Link to the Microsoft VPATS and specifically there are a number of Lync VPAT’s

 Microsoft Lync 2010 Attendee VPAT

 Microsoft Lync 2010 Phone Edition VPAT

 Microsoft Lync 2010 VPAT

 Microsoft Lync Attendant 2010 VPAT

 Microsoft Lync Group Chat 2010 VPAT

 Microsoft Lync Server 2010 VPAT

 Microsoft Lync Web App VPAT

The documents go through the finer details of support for keyboard, High DPI, High Contrast, TTY, MSAA Screen Readers, Here are some of the notes on support for the main Lync Client:

I’m no expert in this area, but it does sound like they have the major aspects covered.

Nothing special to do to get the High Contrast modes, just set your them in Windows and Lync will follow. Here are a few screenshots

Lync phone edition (IP Handsets) also have a high contrast mode), but I don’t have one handy to take and screenshots right now. Let me know if you want to see some.

Continue reading »]]>  

A couple of people have asked me about spellcheck/autocorrect in Microsoft Lync. Out of the box there isn’t any, I guess Microsoft’s thinking is that it is not so important in a quick, less formal medium, with frequent use of shorthand that wouldn’t make sense to spell check anyway.

What if you do want spell check? Well it’s entirely possible for a 3rd party to write an application, but there doesn’t appear to be one yet (probably not enough demand to warrant the effort), However there is a workaround:

Autohotkey is a little automation/text expansion application for windows. I’ve used it in the past for things like inserting different email signatures with a hotkey, or launching a selection of apps from a single hotkey, It’s a great little tool you can adapt for many uses.

One of the Downloads for Autohotkey is “Autocorrect for English”, from the site, “This script corrects about 4700 common English misspellings on-the-fly (wherever you type them) via hotstrings. It also includes a Win+H hotkey to make it easy to add more misspellings.”

Essentially Autohotkey is a script engine. basically you can think of it as a little applet that runs in your system tray (you can even compile the script into an exe), watches what you type and automatically changes it if it detects a common typo or misspelling. Autohotkey scripts are plain text, so you can see the corrections and add your own as necessary.

It will work with any Windows application that takes in text. It is watching your keystrokes so won’t pick up on copy paste unfortunately.

It’s not really spell check, it is autocorrect, but might fit the bill if you really are worried about those misspellings.

Happy to hear any thoughts

Tom

Continue reading »]]>  

So I’ve just done (last weekend) Thomas Lee’s (@Doctordns) PowerShell Powercamp weekend training in London. A Really great from 0 to 100 (maybe more than 100) weekend on PowerShell, starting on the basics and moving right up to scripting and creating your own functions, .NET , WMI and beyond)

Due to the nature of it being a weekend event, it is fast paced, so be ready to type along as Thomas talks and make use of the coffee breaks

Whatever level you are at, I suspect you will get something out of the weekend, but at a minimum I would suggest you at least have had a look at PowerShell, the more basics you already know the more you will get out of it.

Giving up your hard won weekend may cause pause for thought, but the nice thing about being a weekend course it that the group becomes self selecting, i.e. only people who really want to be there and are interested turn up, which makes for a good group dynamic (minimal silly questions, no people who can’t work with VM’s) and turns up some interesting questions and debate.

We were also lucky enough to have James O’Neill  turn up to go over his Hyper-V PowerShell Module. The guy is crazy knowledgeable on PowerShell and WMI, his talk gave us a real eye opener to what is possible with PowerShell. I believe he is doing the same talk at the PowerShell Deep Dive in Vegas, if you are going don’t miss it.

So overall, highly recommended. If you are involved in any Microsoft technology PowerShell is becoming the management standard, and even outside of Microsoft tech it is being adopted all over the place, particularly virtualisation and storage, so it’s a skill well worth having.

I think there are more courses coming up in York, for more info take a look at Thomas Lee’s blog http://tfl09.blogspot.com/

I guess it doesn’t say much about the weekend if I don’t give a PowerShell tip too, well here it is.

The content of the course is great, due to the time constraints it moves fast. You’ll get the most out of the weekends training by typing along, but you also want to make notes right? – don’t worry, PowerShell has got your back

PowerShell has a command history. by default it’s only 64 commands, but we can push that up with the following

$MaximumHistoryCount=2000

That’s great, but how do I get it out of PowerShell I hear you ask? Easy

Get-History | Out-File C:\example\PSTraining.txt

It’s also worth knowing that “#” at the start of a line is used for comments, so you can jot your thoughts down as you go along simply by typing “#” and your comment, and at the end of the day use the get-history command piped to a text file and you have a nice file with all the commands you ran and your comments, clever eh?