Hello everyone! Today I will be discussing how to add, and remove, contacts and calendars permissions for users of Office 365 by using PowerShell. This can be useful should you have trouble trying to add permissions over Outlook.
The first you need to connect to the Office 365 Exchange Powershell, open a Powershell session and enter these commands, providing your Office 365 admin account details when requested:

$cred = Get-Credential

$session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://ps.outlook.com/powershell/ -Credential $cred -Authentication Basic –AllowRedirection

Import-PSSession $session

Now you can get on with the adding and removing user permissions.

Check current permissions
Before you start adding permissions, check if there are any existing permissions on the folder first. If a user already has permissions for another user’s contacts/calendar folder then you won’t be able to change them until the permissions are removed. To do this, type in the following code:

Get-MailboxFolderPermission -Identity [email protected]:\Calendar| Select User, AccessRights, Deny

Change [email protected] with which ever user you want to view. Also Calendar can be changed for Contacts if you want to view who has access to the contacts folder.

Add Permissions
Now that you know the permissions for the folder, you can start adding and removing. First we shall look at adding permissions. Before adding permissions for a user, decide which permission you would like to give them. Below are the options:

Owner

Create, read, modify, and delete all items and files, and create subfolders. As the folder owner, you can change the permission levels others have for the folder. (Does not apply to delegates.)

Publishing Editor

Create, read, modify, and delete all items and files, and create subfolders.

Editor

Create, read, modify, and delete all items and files.

Publishing Author

Create and read items and files, create subfolders, and modify and delete items and files you create.

Author

Create and read items and files, and modify and delete items and files you create.

Contributor

Create items and files only. The contents of the folder do not appear.

Reviewer

Read items and files only

Custom

Perform activities defined by the folder owner.

None

You have no permission’s. You can’t open the folder.

Once you’ve chosen the permissions you wish to give the user you can add the permissions using PowerShell. Use to following code to do this:

Add-MailboxFolderPermission -Identity [email protected]:\Calendar -AccessRights [Permission goes here] -User [email protected]

Replace the [email protected] with the mailbox you want to add permissions to and [email protected] to the mailbox you want to have access. Also change [Permission goes here] to whatever permission you wish to use from the list above.

Remove Permissions
Lastly, if you want to remove some permissions then you can use this line of code:

Remove-MailboxFolderPermission -Identity [email protected]:\Calendar -User [email protected]

I hope this has helped you. Thanks for reading!

There are many parts that cloud computing encompasses. One of those is Virtual desktops. A virtual desktop is one of many operating systems that are run off centralized servers that pool their resources together. A user would connect to the virtual desktop remotely from a device that has an internet connection. The VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) uses the server’s hardware to do all the processing and saving of data. Therefore, your own device is only used as a gateway to your virtual computer where all the work is done. How can they benefit me? A virtual desktop can benefit you in many different ways depending on your requirements. Below is a list of ways explaining how:

Cost:

One way they can benefit you is by saving you money on electricity. By using a virtual desktop you save your computer from having to do all the processing that it would usually do. Therefore, you will save money on electricity. Tied in with the last point is saving money on computer maintenance. With all the processing moved to the cloud, your computer will be running on minimal process. This would mean that your hardware will not get worn out as fast as a normal computer’s would. Also, being that a VDI is on a centralized server means that it can be easily accessed by a computer technician. This means they can diagnose and fix the problem faster than fixing conventional problems.

Flexibility

A great reason for using a virtual desktop is to extend the capabilities of what you can do on your PC. What I mean is that, unless you have a top of the range PC then you won’t be able to run everything and even then, depending on the operating system you are using, you won’t be able to run OS specified applications. For example, Say your computer is running Windows 7. It does the majority of things that you want to do. However, for work you need to use an application that you can only use on Apple Mac’s to get your work done. With a virtual desktop you could have VDI with Mac OS installed on it in a short period of time. Also, with a VDI, they can be changed on the fly. Things like memory, upgrades, applications etc. can all be added while VDI is in use. This means there is far less down time is needed for maintenance and to upgrade the VDI.

Connectivity

A great thing about Virtual Desktops is their ability to be used anywhere. By having your virtual desktop in the cloud, all you need to access it is a PC with an internet connection. This would be very handy for someone who works from home or moves around a lot for work. As long as they have a PC and an internet connection they would be able to access all their documents, emails, and applications etc. from the virtual desktop.

In this day of age lots of people have portable devices. Along with laptops there are also tablets and smart phones that users choose to bring into work and use. This is called Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). BYOD can make things more convenient for the user by giving them preference over what hardware and software they use. However, this gives the company issue for these reasons:

1. Can introduce viruses onto the network: Devices that belong to the company will be heavily regulated by the IT department. The computers will have full anti-virus software installed on with strictly controlled firewalls and website blocking to prevent any viruses getting on the network. A user’s own device isn’t heavily regulated. They may have anti-virus on their device (they’d be silly not to) but this won’t necessarily stop them getting infected. If the device is being used for personal use only then it won’t be a problem for the IT department or the company. But when the user brings in the device to work, connects it to the network and start’s sending out emails to colleagues then you could see the office quickly becoming contaminated with viruses. This will be a nightmare for the company as it will take a while to clear the computers of viruses and get the office back online. This brings me to my second point.
2. Compromising of company data: With the rise of cyber-crime, company data has become a valuable and tightly guarded asset. All this data will be kept on encrypted servers behind firewalls and locked doors. All these measures would make it very hard for a potential hacker to get to the data, but with BYOD this can all be compromised. If a user does some work on sensitive data from their own device then they could compromise by having little safe guards against hackers but also, should they take the data out of the company building, they could compromise the data by accidentally leaving their device in a place that could be stolen or the person accidentally loses it in a public place (that has happened before with Government officials leaving laptops and USB sticks on the train).
3. Technical Issues: With company devices, everything is uniform. All the computers would have the same software, hardware and applications which make it easier for IT support to fix potential issues. With BYOD you’ll find lots of different devices with different specifications. This makes it a lot harder for IT support to fix issues due to being unfamiliar with technology and the quagmire of apps the user would have on their device. It also issues with hardware and software compatibility. For example: a user brings in their MacBook Pro to do work on and uses an Apple application to do work. He then sends this work to his colleagues (who are using Windows based devices) and they are unable too view his work because they haven’t got the software to view the file.

There are ways round the problems cause by BYOD. One of these is the use of VMware Virtual Machines (VM’s).
The use of VM’s could completely negate the risks of BYOD if it’s implemented properly. This is how it would work: The user would bring in their device to work. Once in they would setup the device, connect to a public network (this would give them internet access without putting the, potential infected, device on the same network as other, more secure devices on the company network). Once connected to the network they can open up startup their company VM and do their work on the VM.
By doing their work on the VM over a public network then this would mean the device isn’t in contact with any other company device on a private network. That way, viruses won’t be able to spread to the company devices and infect them.
Also, by using VM’s, company data can’t be physically taken off site. If the user takes their device off site then the company data won’t leave with them because it will be on their VM. That way, should they lose their device or it gets stolen, no untrusted third parties would be able to view the data as they would not have access to the VM.
The use of VMware VM’s also cuts out the issue of troubleshooting and hardware & software compatibility issues. The VM’s can be created from templates meaning that all users would be using the same applications whilst working from their own devices. Should a problem occur with the VM then IT support can fix quickly (and easily) from their own computers.

Hello everyone, today I will talking about recovering deleted emails and item using PowerShell. Occasionally accidents happen and important emails or things like calendar events get deleted. If you are unlucky you won’t be able to recover the deleted items the easy way over Microsoft Exchange server and will have to use PowerShell. Below are the steps to take to do this:

1. Make Sure you are a member of the Discover Management Role Group Before you can recover the deleted item, you need to be a member of the Discover Management Role Group (DMRG). This will allow you to search for messages across multiple mailboxes in your organization. If you are not a member of the DMRG then follow this link that will show you steps to assign yourself that role: Link
2. Startup PowerShell and put in your credentials, where you’re getting the sessions from and importing The next thing to do is start up PowerShell. Type in the code below: $cred = Get-Credential This get the credentials for the exchange server.$session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://ps.outlook.com/powershell/ -Credential $cred -Authentication Basic –AllowRedirection This sets up a connections with the exchange server Import-PSSession $session This will import the sessions.
3. Search for and recover the email Now that PowerShell is setup we can move onto recovering the deleted item. Note: items in square brackets [example] are to be replaced by your requirements.To retrieve a single item follow these steps: First you need to search for the email: search-Mailbox [user] -SearchDumpsterOnly -SearchQuery [search query] -TargetMailbox "Discovery Search Mailbox" -TargetFolder [search name] -LogLevel Full Once you’ve found the item you can recover it: Search-Mailbox "Discovery Search Mailbox" -SearchQuery [search query] -TargetMailbox [user] -TargetFolder inbox If you wish to recover all permantely deleted items from the purged items folder run this line of code: Search-Mailbox [email protected] -SearchDumpsterOnly -TargetMailbox "Discovery Search Mailbox" -TargetFolder RecoveredItems -LogLevel Full
4. I hope this blog post has helped you. Thank you for reading!

Hello everyone. Today I will be talking you through how to fix the search function for Alfresco 4.0d. Out of the box, Alfresco’s search function runs on solr. However, solr doesn’t work properly on Alfresco 4.0d so when you try to search a document Alfresco will come back with no results. To fix this you will need to switch from solr to Lucene which will require a bit of script altering. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Stop Alfresco
   Before we start editing alfresco’s we first need to turn it off. This will then allow you to edit the files required to setup Lucene. To do this go to your alfresco server and start up the alfresco manager tool. Once in go to the “Manage Application” tab and click the “Stop All” button. This will shutdown alfresco completely.
2. Edit the file Alfresco-global.properties
   Once alfresco has been stop you’ll need to edit the alfresco-global.properties file. This will be located at: alfresco\tomcat\shared\classes\alfresco-global.properties. This file is responsible for all the base setting for alfresco, including the database. The segment of code that you are looking for is:

   ### Solr indexing ###
index.subsystem.name=solr
dir.keystore=/keystore
solr.port.ssl=8444

   You will need the edit some of this to setup Lucene. You’ll need to replace solr with lucene in the line index.subsystem.name=solr, hash tag out the lines dir.keystore=$(dir.root)/keystroke and solr.port.ssl=8444. You will also need to add in index.recovery.mode=FULL. This will re-build the index so that lucene will work. This is what you’ll need to change it to:

   ### Solr/lucene indexing ###
index.subsystem.name=lucene
index.recovery.mode=FULL
#dir.keystore=/keystore
#solr.port.ssl=8443


   Once that is done, save the file and start up alfresco so that the index can be re-built.

3. Stop Alfresco, edit alfresco-global and delete some folders and files
   Once the index has been re-built you’ll need to stop alfresco to do more editing. First things first, get alfresco-global.properties open and go to the section we edited in the last step. You’ll need to change the index.recovery.mode to the following:

   index.recovery.mode=AUTO

   Once that is done you need to delete the following folders and files:

   • Alfresco\ald_data\solr
   • Alfresco\tomcat\conf\Catalina\localhost\solr.xml
   • Alfresco\tomcat\webapps\solr

   Once those folders and file have been deleted you can start up Alfresco again with Lucene in place of solr. The search function should now work.
   Thank you for reading.

Hello everyone. Today I will be talking about how to fix word toolbar options not being saved. This fix can also be applied to toolbar options that are permanently grayed out as well. Word is a very easy tool to personalize. The options tab gives you the ability to change the toolbar to the way you want it. However, sometimes Word won’t save your option changes. This can be caused by the toolbar cache being corrupted.

To fix this issue you need to go onto the Registry Editor. Registry editor tool that gives you access to all the registry caches. To access it you need to go to start > Run and then type in “regedit”. This will bring up the registry edit tool. Using this you’ll need to Software > Microsoft > Office > 14.0 (this depends on what version of office you have. i.e., you could be using 8.0) > Word > Data.

Once you are in the data folder you need to look for a cache named “Toolbars”. Once located you can either delete the cache or (if you want to play it safe) rename to cache to “toolbar_old”. This way you can revert to the cache should you need too. If you really want to play safe then you can also backup the original cache.

Once that is done close down RegEdit and restart word. You should now be able to save your options. Test this by changing some options, restarting word and then check if the options remain. Then try restarting your PC and checking the options remain the same after that. If they do then it should be working.

Thanks for reading!

Hello everyone. Today I will be talking about how to turn off Add-Ins in Microsoft Office. Add-ins are software that is added into Microsoft Office applications to, usually, allow them to work in conjunction with other applications. An example of this would be a database application that contains customer details and has letter templates. When you click on the letter template the template will open up as a document in Word. This is due to the add-in that would have been automatically installed on Office when the application has been installed. This allows for better integration amongst numerous applications.

However, sometimes these add-ins from 3rd party software can cause issue’s with office. On occasion I have seen them have effects on Office applications that cause Office to either not work the way it should or not work at all. in these instances, you should disable the add-ins one at a time to determine if any of them are causing the issues. To do this you need to:

1. In the affected Office application, go to File and then click on Options. This located on the left hand side between Help and Exit
2. Once in the options control panel, click on the add-In’s tab. This is located on the lower left hand side of the control panel
3. The Add-in’s Panel will display all the Add-ins that are active, inactive, document related and disabled. At the bottom is a drop down list of Add-ins to manage. Choose “COM Add-Ins” and then click “Go…”.
4. You should now has a list of all the COM add-ins. If they have a tick next to them then they are active. If they don’t then they are inactive. To deactivate the ad-in just un-tick the box next to a particular add-ins and press ok. You can also remove or add add-ins in this panel.

If you can’t even do that (I have had an instance when an add-in had not allowed access to file tab to I couldn’t access the options) then you should start up the Office application in safe mode. To do this click on start and type in the search bar the name of the application followed by “/safe”. This will start up the application with all add-ins disabled and will allow to try try and (hopefully) find what is wrong with Office and fix it.

I hop ethis has helped you. Thanks for reading!

Hello, today I will taking you through the steps of how to setup a POP and IMAP email account on Outlook. When it comes to manually setting up an email account, you have 2 options (depending on where your exchange is). The first is to point outlook to a Microsoft exchange server or an equivalent. You would use this if you run your email off Office 365 or an exchange server provider. The other would be to point outlook to a SMTP and POP server. You would use this is you have your own email servers setup with POP and SMTP. Before you setup your POP email address you will need your email address, password and the Domain Name’s of the POP and SMTP servers.

1. To add the email account go to Outlook and click File > Info >Add account. This will start up the account wizard immediately. Alternatively you can add an email address by going to start > control Panel > mail. Once you’re on Mail you can wither click on Email accounts which will take you to the account setting of default profile or, if you wish to add the email account into a different profile, click on “Show profiles” and then select to profile in which you wish to add the email account into. This will then take you in Account Setting panel as well. Once in the Accounts Settings panel click on the “New..” button in the top left hand corner to start the “Add New Account” wizard.
2. Once you’re on the “Add new Account Wizard” click “Manually configure server settings or additional server types” and click next. Then choose “Internet Email” to and click next.
3. Once in the “Internet Email Settings” panel you can start filling in the information. In the “server Information” section, choose whether the server is uses POP3 or IMAP and then enter the server Domain name. This would likely be along the lines on “mail.example.com”. Fill in your server login in details and click “Test Account Settings..” to make sure you have a connection to the server and that you can login into it.
4. Once you’ve established a connection with the server click “More Settings”. In the General tab fill in the reply email section. This is usually the same as your email address. If you are using an internet service providers SMTP server go to the “Outgoing Server” and tick “My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication”. Click on the advanced tab to check the ports are set to 110 and 25. Once done click OK and then next. Your POP email address should now be setup.

Thank you for reading.

Hello everyone, today i will be discussing Bit coins. Some of you may already know of Bit Coins but the large majority will never have heard of it. So I will be explaining to you what they are, how you obtain them and what you can use them for. What are Bitcoins? Bit Coins are an online currency (also know as e-cash) that was created in January 2009 by Satoshi Nakamoto. Satoshi is a cryptographer who came up with the Bit Coin Protocol. Bit coins are similar to that of local currency (such as that of town’s that have their own currency that you use in local shops) in the sense that the worth of the Bit Coin is decided by the online community. The worth of the Bit Coin will fluctuate depending on the amount and size of transactions though, unlike national currencies, the value of the bit coin can quickly recover. At the time of typing this, 1 Bitcoin (BTC) is equal to £8.239GBP or $13.32USD. Bit Coins come in 3 varieties: You have the Bitcoin (1), the Bitcent (0.01) and the Satoshi (0.00000001). All of these can be earned and traded over the internet like normal currency. These will be kept in your Bitcoin wallet on your computer. These wallets have their own, unique address (like a bank account number) that will be used to make transactions. The worth of the Bit Coin will fluctuate depending on the amount and size of transactions though, unlike national currencies, the value of the bit coin can quickly recover. How does it Work? Like all currencies, Bitcoin relies on the communities trust in the exchange for it to have value. By the community having trust in Bitcoin people will use, buy and sell Bitcoin. if no-one has trust in Bitcoin then no-one will use it. Unlike normal currencies, Bitcoin doesn’t have a centralized body that issues Bitcoins. Instead, Bitcoins are rewarded to “Miners” whom then sell their Bitcoins onto the community. The miners themselves are individual’s that are all connected to the Bitcoin network who either work by themselves or in groups (this will be discussed later). The number of bitcoins that can be “mined” is set at 21 million (at time of writing there are currently 11 million Bitcoins in circulation). Once 21 million Bitcoins have been mined no more will be created. This is outlined by the protocol that Satoshi came up with. By people abiding by the protocol and trusting in the currency is what gives Bitcoins their worth and makes the system work. In order to make counterfeiting impossible, all the transactions are stored on an online database called the block chain. The block chain is formed of blocks. Blocks are list of all the transactions that took place in the space of 10 minutes. Once that 10 minutes is up the block is added to the block chain and a new block is started. Once 6 blocks are put on top of each other the block chain the consensus solidifies so it becomes impractical to alter the transactions for your own gain. These blocks must meet constraints, dictated by the network, before they are added to the block chain. This mean that it is very hard for a person to cheat the system. How do you Obtain BitCoin’s? You can obtain BitCoins in 3 ways: exchanging for actual currency, trading and mining. Exchanging for actual money is used to get you started in the Bitcoin exchange. Once you have some bitcoins you can start trading with others in the community such in the same way city traders do. You can buy and sell Bitcoins and then exchange them for real currencies. If you own a business you can join the 1000 merchants signed up to Bitcoins and start trading your good’s for Bitcoins. The main method for obtaining Bitcoins is Mining. This is the process of finding a solution to a difficult Proof-Of-Work problem which confirms transactions and prevents double spending. This would be done by a node (a graphics card) on a dedicated server (it has to be dedicated as it requires a lot of electricity). These transactions are put into files called blocks every 10 minutes and then added to the block chain (an online public database that has contains a list of all the transactions). The block chain is only allowed to accept 1 block per 10 minutes. This block must meet stringent constraints dictated by the network. If the block hasn’t formed into the form it should then the block chain will reject it. The one block that gets accepted onto the Block chain will get it’s owner 50 Bitcoins as a reward for the work they’ve done. The downside to mining is the time, effort and resources it takes to get the reward. Mining uses a lot of electricity, data and takes place on Graphics Cards so it can be impractical cost money for the individual miner. For this reason, some miners pool their resources together and then split the reward they get depending on the work they’ve done. The only downside to this is you have to give up some of the reward you get but it can be beneficial in the long run. I hope this has given you a better understanding into the world of Bitcoins. Thank you for reading!

Hello there. Today I will be discussing why small to medium sized businesses should invest in a fully integrated cloud infrastructure over a traditional IT model. Cloud technology has been around for a couple of years now and (with all things technical) businesses have been slow to adopt it. Most big businesses have taken the step to the cloud yet small to medium sized businesses are still choosing to take up the traditional IT option (physical desktops, on site storage etc.). So below I’ve made a list of reasons why small businesses should move to the cloud.

1. Flexibility Flexibility is a very important aspect to small and medium sized businesses. Being flexible allows them to manoeuvre and adapt to the ever changing business and economic climate we live in. So, how come they don’t apply that to their IT? The traditional business model for IT is only as flexible if you are willing to pay a lot of money. For example: as an owner of a business, you need a server to do specific tasks. However, to make the most of that server you will need to think 5 years ahead to decide on its requirements. So, to make it flexible in the future, you have it run on up to date hardware, the latest software and a lot of disk space for expansion. By doing this, you now have a high end server that should be able to meet future requirements. However, to get that ability you are now down by a large sum of money. Also, given that technology advances at a fast rate, you’ll find that (after a couple of years) your server will struggle to meet the demand of the tasks you give it. You’ll then have to pay more money to either improve performance or upgrade to a new server. In comparison, using a cloud server will already give you that flexibility from the word go. A cloud server can be changed and adapted to your needs in a matter of minutes. If you need more disk space more can be added in a few clicks. Software can be added in a couple of clicks. This gives you a degree of flexibility that you wouldn’t be able to achieve with a traditional IT model. By taking the cloud route, you can adapt your IT to whatever your requirements are in a short amount of time and for a low cost. Flexibility can also be used in terms of maintaining your IT systems. A problem with a desktop will take longer to fix than a cloud desktop as a technician would have either have to try and fix the problem remotely or come on site to fix the problem. If the technician would have to come on site then the down time is a lot longer as you’d have to wait for the technician to arrive. By having your IT systems in the cloud the technician would be able to take control of your computer and have the issue fixed in a shorter period of time.
2. Security Your data is the most important asset to your company. Should your data become compromised or destroyed then your company will struggle to recover it. With the traditional IT method, you’ll setup up your computer and servers to backup regularly, encrypt any data you store and have anti-virus installed. These measures should protect you against most threats such as viruses and unforeseen technical malfunctions. However, will it protect it from a major disaster? Should your company experience a major disaster (such s a flood or a fire) then you’re looking at major downtime in your business and lost or unrecoverable data. This, potentially, could be an event that your business won’t be able to recover from. By using utilising the cloud you can avoid these threats. Having all your data stored on the cloud takes away the risk of localized threats. For example: when using a cloud desktop you connect to the desktop over the internet. All the work that is done on that cloud desktop stays in the cloud. Should your PC break then all you have to do is go to another computer (that has an internet connection) and access your cloud desktop from there. All the work you were working on will be left the way it was when your PC broke. So should your whole office go down none of the work that you or your employees were working on will be lost. The same principle goes for data storage. With your servers in the cloud you will be able to easily access your data once you have a site setup.
3. Cost There are two main subjects when to the cost of IT: the cost to run those IT systems (electrical usage) and the cost to maintain those systems. With the traditional IT model the cost is far higher. Even with the advancement of technology your standard desktop still uses a lot of electricity. The same goes to your on site servers, which you should keep running 24/7. The cost to run these IT systems will increase each year as electricity prices go up and your PC goes out of date (in terms of technology). Over those years your PC’s and server’s will also degrade. The standard life span of a desktop is 3 years and in those 3 years the cost of maintenance will go up as your desktop struggles to cope with the tasks it’s given. This changes when you move to the cloud. A number of places offer thin clients to access your cloud desktop to access your cloud desktop. These are, essentially, compact desktops that run on minimum hardware. The hardware itself is barely used as all the work is done on the cloud desktop itself. By using these you reduce electricity costs as far less electricity is being used. Maintenance costs also go down because a thin client has far less to go wrong with it. Since the hardware is barely being used the thin client degrades at a far slower rate, meaning it lasts far longer.

I hope you have found this blog article interesting. Thank you for reading.