Ant Drewery

I came across this great piece of free software whilst looking for a utility to help me recover a lost Excel password.

Free Word / Excel Password Recovery Software

Technorati Tags: Word, Excel, Password

I’ve just bought a PocketPower device from Gear4. It’s a rechargable power pack that can charge/power any of your USB devices. I bought it mainly to add some battery life to my iPod Video on long trips but I can also use it for my BlackBerry and mobile phone.

It comes with 4 rechargable AAA batteries but regular batteries can also be used. If using rechargables you can charge them in the device via the USB port on your PC/laptop. The device is light, compact and slips easily into my laptop bag.

Gear4 claim it will add up to 8 hours playback time to your iPod. The real test for me will be an 11 hour flight to the USA next month.

Technorati Tags: iPod, Gear4, PocketPower

I came across this interesting post on the BlackBerry Cool blog. I haven’t installed the desktop software as my BlackBerry was activated over the air with our BES 4.0 but I do sometimes connect it to my laptop to charge (I cancel the driver installation wizard).

BlackBerry Cool » Install Desktop Manager for Faster Recharge times

I was asked today if it’s possible to customise the text in the non-delivery reports that Exchange 2003 sends. To the best of my knowledge this can’t be done if you are just using Exchange. However, if you run a product like MailSweeper you could intercept outbound NDRs that match a particular criteria then modify the content before allowing to be delivered. That’s how I would tackle it if we had the requirement in our organisation.

Technorati Tags: Exchange, NDR, Mailsweeper

I’ve just signed up for 30 Boxes and whilst exploring the features noticed it has the ability to display your local weather to your buddies. As with a lot of applications I’ve encountered they prompt for a US zip code thereby giving the impression that only US weather can be displayed. However, in most cases you can also enter a code for other cities around the world. To get the code for your city try the following:

• Go to the weather.com World Search.
• Find and display the weather for your city.
• Now look at the URL for the page. After /local/ you should see a code that looks something like this UKXX0215.
• Copy the code and paste it into the Your Weather field on 30 Boxes.

With a bit of luck it will have found your local (non-US) city.

Technorati Tags: weather, 30Boxes, 30 Boxes

They say that every day is a school day and today is no exception. Maybe this is common knowledge for most but I learned that data is actually a plural from the Latin singular datum (in the same way that agenda is the plural of agendum).

Although it has become acceptable in modern language to refer to data as singular its correct usage would be as a plural e.g. “My data were corrupted by the server crash”.

Technorati Tags: grammar, language

I first started working with Exchange in 1998 and up until a couple of years ago usually avoided installing a file level real-time anti-virus scanner on a dedicated Exchange server. (The exception to this is where an Exchange server has other functions like file sharing, or is a Small Business Server.) Unfortunately with the growing number of nasties in circulation a file level (and memory resident) AV scanner has become a precautionary requirement.

If you do use file level anti-virus scanning you should exclude the databases, logs and SMTP Mailroot folders. Failure to do so could leave you with possible log/DB corruption and excessive CPU time on your AV processes. In fact, I’d recommend excluding all Exchange folders from scanning. This also applies to scheduled and manual scans.

Technorati Tags: Exchange, Anti-Virus