Paul Shadwell RTFM

Solving Incoming Email Problems after Migrating to Sharepoint 2010

It's been a week of frustration and revelation this week after spending last weekend migrating our Sharepoint 2007 server to Sharepoint 2010.

I opted for the database attach method of upgrading as I had already setup 2 new virtual machines with Sharepoint 2010 and SQL Server 2008 respectively. So I simply did a backup of the Sharepoint content databases on the old SQL Server 2005 server using the built in tools, copied the backup files to the new server and then ran a restore.

Now in our environment we have several email enabled Document Libraries, a couple of which are mission critical. Hence the main reason for performing the upgrade over the weekend. 

The migration went well and all the content databases restored and upgraded using the instructions from Microsoft. I went to the main Document Library to check on the email enabled setting but the link was missing in the Document Library settings. So a quick check in the Sharepoint Administration site quickly showed me I had to enable the Incoming Email Service. So following the instruction (it's pretty much the same as on Sharepoint 2007) I installed the SMTP service on the Sharepoint 2010 server and user the IIS 6 Management tool to setup the domain aliases and trusted mail servers the same way as I had it setup in the old environment.

I then went into the Document Library settings and sure enough the link for the Email Enabling the Document Library was there and going in I saw all the settings were as they were on the old server, so I thought, job done.

I sent a test message to the document Library's email address and waited for it to appear in the list, and waited, and waited. Nothing appeared, uh! oh!. So I went through all the settings just to make sure. I then opened up the SMTP Drop Folder and watched while I sent another email. The email appeared in the Drop Folder and disapeared. This means that the SMTP service was working and that Sharepoint was picking up the email but nothing was appearing in the Document Library.

I tried several ways to try and track what was happening but nothing was appearing in any logs which seemed odd. Entries were in the SMTP log but nothing in the Sharepoint Timer service log which is the service that picks up the emails and transfers them to the appropriate Document Library.

After a few days of failed solutions and scouring the internet for hours I took one last ditch attempt to figure out what was going on.

In a separate Site Collection, I created a new Document Library and setup the incoming email address. I then sent it an email. The email appeared!!

I then had a thought, what if there was a missing attribute that was causing the problem and because the migrated Document Libraries were already enabled what if I disabled the function and then re-enabled it.

So that's what I tried. I went into the Document Library settings and clicked Incoming E-mail Settings. I set "Allow this document library to receive e-mail" to No and clicked Save.

I then clicked Incoming E-mail Settings again and set "Allow this document library to receive e-mail" to Yes and clicked Save again.

I then sent the Document Library an email and held my breath, a few moments later the email appeared!!! I then immediately went through all my document libraries and did the same thing.

So for those of you suffering the same problem of incoming emails not appearing in migrated Sharepoint Document Libraries, the answer appears to be to turn it off and turn on again :-)

Some useful links:

An SMTP Testing Service

Setting up Incoming E-mail Service on Sharepoint 2010

Unlocking the Huawei E5830 aka 3 Mifi (Part One)

Whilst in the UK recently I bought a 3 Mifi with a Pay As You Go SIM for £69. They also had the Novatel Mifi but it was only available with Vodaphone on a contract. So I decided to go for the offering from 3. I had read that it was unlock-able and had many more features than 3 were allowing it's customers.

As soon as I got home after my trip to the UK, I started researching what I needed to do to unlock the unit. Pretty much everyone was pointing to http://dc-unlocker.com for the relevant software. You have to purchase credits for the unlock code and 15 are required for the E5830 at a total cost of 15 Euros. The only issue is that it can only be done on a PC running Windows. After some testing I found that it was perfectly possible to run the unlock software and the firmware upgrades, using VMWare Fusion running Windows 7 as the guest OS. Once unlocked, you can do everything else from the Mac, using the web interface that is revealed after applying a firmware update.

Each carrier in each country has a different APN (Access Point Name), you need this information when using another carrier's SIM in the Mifi. Here is a useful site with all the most common carriers by country and the relevant APN info: APN List

I did find a lot of information but it does seem to be all over the place, so in an attempt to consolidate the information here are the steps I took to unlock the Hauwei E5830 and update the firmware, so that it is possible to change the APN via the web interface.

On a Windows PC or using VMWare Fusion running Windows go to the following URL:

http://www.dc-unlocker.com/

Click the "Free Download" link

Click the download link

Now run dc-unlocker_client-x.xx.xxxx.exe (the Xs are the version number which was 1.00.0486 when I wrote this) and install it.
At this point, plug in the Mifi using the USB cable it came with into a USB port. Then power on the Mifi and wait a few moments for it to be recognised in Windows and for the drivers to install. If you are using VMware Fusion, make sure you are in Windows when you plug in the Mifi, otherwise it will try and come up on the Mac side. If this happens, go into Fusion and select Virtual Machine from the menu, then USB, then click "Connect HUAWEI Mobile Connect" if it already says "Disconnect HUAWEI Mobile Connect" then the Mifi is connected and working.

Now run the DC-Unlocker client from the icon now on your desktop. (Make sure that the 3 Wifi Manager software that you may have installed, is not running before starting DC-Unlocker)
You can now click the search button:

After a few seconds you should see something similar to this:

The difference being that yours will say Locked where the arrow is pointing.

When you are ready, click the Buy-Credits button, this will take you to the DC-Unlocker website. You will need to purchase 15 credits to unlock the HUAWEI E5830 you can see the list and credits required here: Unlock Huawei E5830,E5832,E583x,E5836, E5837

Select PayPal and fill in you details:
Credits for: New User
User name: Create a username that does not already exist.
E-mail: Enter a valid email address as you will be sent a password.
Credits: Enter 15 as this is the number required to unlock the Huawei Mifi.

Click confirm
You will be taken to PayPal where you pay 15 Euros for the credits. When complete you will get an email with your username and a password.

Go back to the DC-Unlocker client which should still be running:
Click the Server button shown and fill in the username and password you were sent in the email.
Click the "Check Login" button to make sure everything is working.

Now click the Unlocking button and click Unlock

Within a few seconds the window will refresh and the SIM Lock Status will be unlocked

That's it, you can now use your unlocked 3 Mifi with other carriers and in other countries using locally obtained SIMs. There is a further step to make it fully usable and that will be in a follow up post that I am working on now.

Energy Saving for Geeks

Today has been interesting in that I woke up and went straight to my Mac Pro, that is usually running through the night along with all my other computers, and checked Twitter. I noticed Bill Thompson mention Dr Who, don't know why that caught my eye, I'm not a big fan or anything like that but all the same, there was a link that took me to a recording or a radio interview with Andy Stamford-Clark and engineer at IBM who has wired his Isle of Wight house up to send Tweets when certain things happen.

Then after delving further I found more information about what Andy does and that his setup also monitors and tweets the electricity power consumption of the house as well as individual appliances. It was only the other day when we were faced with paying what equated to be a large electricity bill, almost double what I usually pay and I was wondering what could be drawing so much energy.

The web pages led me to find that what Andy was actually using, was a device that uses a sensor around the main power cable going into the house, that detects the flow of electrical current in the wire and that in turn is displayed wirelessly to a device with an LCD screen. The device also has a serial port allowing it to be connected to a computer. More details here.

For more detail go and take a look at his video presentation and read the interview found here. I have now ordered the monitoring hardware via eBay and I shall blog about it's installation and setup when it arrives.

I have also ordered a Viglen MPC-L for just £104.75 with £11 postage, which will run the setup described by Andy.

IBM is offering the MQTT service for free to those interested in participating in the social side of this project. I can see this becoming an ongoing project for my house in Switzerland. Stay tuned.

Not only does this look like a fun and reasonably cheap project but it can also potentially save you money spent on your energy bills. How cool is that?

I'm Back

Well actually I didn't go anywhere, at least no where exciting, it's just that every time I do something of interest and I think "I must blog about this" by the time I get round to it the moment has gone. Plus, and this is probably more of an excuse than a valid reason for not keeping my blog updated, I find it a pain to go to the website and update my blog there.

I use TypePad and although it's a great site I just find the whole process tedious and time consuming.

Now, when I did the last few blog posts, I have been using a couple of tools to do this which has proved to be much easier. On the PC I was even using the free blogging tool which is part of the Windows Live suite of free apps. The tool I use is called Windows Live Writer and for a free application it is very nice and easy to use.

But I'm trying to move away from PC apps and spend more time doing everything on my Mac. I was using Blogo but it just seemed too basic. Watching a recent SCO from Don McAllister he mentioned that he uses MarsEdit to update his blog. Although I had heard of MarsEdit, I had not tried it. So here I am telling you about it via my blog and doing so using MarsEdit! I just have the 30 day trial version and like most Mac apps, it is a fully functional trial.

Tell me about your blogging experiences and what tools do you use.

ps: It would be really nice to have a WYSIWYG interface in these blogging tools that really show you what's going on. I have nicely presented paragraphs here in MarsEdit but when I post all the text appears as one block.

pps: just discovered the paragraph item under the Markup menu.

A comment about IE6Update

I listened to Paul Boag's AudioBoo this morning regarding IE6Update and had to comment. Here’s what I said:

I completely agree Paul, this is really bad.
I think it's pretty safe to say that the majority of people still using IE6 do not have any choice in the matter, i.e. they're sitting in enterprises consisting of hundreds if not thousands of users where the process of upgrades are very strictly managed.
The biggest reason used by management for not upgrading is cost. If it doesn't effect the day today running of the business it is right at the bottom of the list of priorities. Sad but true.
Believe me when I say that most IT departments fight tooth and nail to get basic upgrades like these done but it's an uphill battle to justify the cost, especially during financial crisis times.
Of course, there are also IT departments that are ignorant to the issues if browser versions.

In addition to this comment I do have an example of IT department ignorance. A well known insurance company I used to work for has a very good and forward thinking web site that does not function well if viewed using IE6. However, 60,000 installed users within the company are still using IE6 because upgrading the web browser is the lowest priority. The people who need it, i.e. the web developers have special installations.

Unfortunately this is the sort of reality that internal IT departments are faced with and right now, IT departments are being thinned down and projects are mostly on hold unless they’re business critical.

I also dislike IE6 but as I said, most of the people who still have it, have absolutely no choice in the matter and using something like IE6Update does not help the matter, in fact it’s more likely to get you site blocked by IT if you do use it. So please don’t encourage it.

My Podcast Debuts

Some people have been asking me about my guest appearances on podcasts so here are the episodes of the International Mac Podcast I have appeared on so far and the Mac 20 Questions.

IMP Live 025 Swiss Paul
IMP Live 029 Terms & Conditions Apply
IMP Live 033 The Clone Wars

Mac20Q PodCast 11

Enjoy and let me know what you think.

If you'd like me to appear on your podcast just drop me an email or contact me via Twitter.

Todays Challenge

Today has been a long day and I don't feel as though I achieved much.

Issues today included, an ActiveX control not working for one user
A .eml file giving strange behaviour when opening. in fact it never opens but alternates between Downloading and Done very quickly.
SharePoint apparently running slowly.
The last one I have tracked down to an issue with the clients viewing the SharePoint pages. Not all the PCs had the same issue.
I now have to dig deeper to find out what the issues are that's causing these failures.

Just a short and sweet blog this evening as I am cream crackered.

Good night and speak to you again tomorrow.

What should I do now?

Do you sometimes think about where you are and what you're doing? I'm there right now. For the past few weeks I've been busy working on various projects but all for other people and not making any progress on my own projects one of which is branding myself.
I have a lot of experience in a number of different and wide ranging fields, from building virtual infrastructure environments to customising real Harley Davidsons, all of which I find a lot of fun to work on. So I'm thinking, should I focus on one or maybe two of these area or all of them together, should I have one blog that focuses on one or several blogs, one for each?
I also have some possible business opportunities and I am getting my own company off the ground, these include offering my services as a Virtual Environment Engineer and as a web designer/developer.
My daughter has just graduated as a graphic designer so I can see an opportunity also for her, she has already done some design work for me which will result in new websites soon.
So as you can see, I'm having trouble knowing where to start.
I often think about blogging my thoughts but generally that's as far as it gets and I know that's not good.
Anyway, enough of my ramblings :-)
There are a couple of things I need to complete, not least of which is the review of online accounting software. I intend to do this soon, especially as there have been significant changes to some of the software I intend to look at, plus, my tax year is coming up at the end of March, so would be handy to have something for myself by then.
If you have any input, suggestions etc, I would love to hear them.

Online Accounting Software Review

Starting a new business is a challenge in itself, especially when the economy is as unstable as it is at the moment but that's where I am and I'm pretty excited about being able to work in areas of tech that I love.
What I don't love is having to keep record of my income and outgoings better known as accounting.
In the past I have used Microsoft Money and Quickbooks which are client based applications, by client I mean that they are software applications that you have to install on your PC to use it.

These days internet bandwidth availability is making it much easier to have applications siting on a central server in an ISPs datacenter. Making these applications web based and non-reliant on client installed software.

I put a tweet out on Twitter a couple of days ago asking for online accounting solutions and I was very pleased to get some responses and I will list them here and I will be doing a review on each of them. The review will be focused on my requirements for my business which is based in Switzerland but as I am not an accountant some details may be left out. My girlfriend who IS an accountant will also be looking at these applications with me.

The online accounting applications I will be looking at will be:

Xero
Clarity Accounting
Freshbooks
Liquid Accounts
Kashflow
LessAccounting
Free Agent Central

Another reason for looking at online solutions is that I need an cross platform solution as I will be using both Macs and PCs to access the systems. Saying that, I have also been told that there are some installed applications for the Mac such as Cha-Ching and iBank thanks to Victor Cajiao for suggesting these and thanks to Don McAllister, Dobes Vandermeer and Ralph Bassfeld for their suggestions too.

I'll be posting reviews of each of the products over the coming days.

Update: LessAccounting has been added to the review list, thanks to Steven Bristol for bringing it to my attention.
Update 2: I have added Free Agent Central to the list. Thanks to Paul Stone for the pointer.

New Swiss Apple Store opening Friday

The new Apple store in Glattzentrum is opening this Friday, the 26th of September at 10am.

The first 1500 customers will get a free Apple t-shirt.
Unfortunatley I won't be there as I have a prior engagement with a few thousand other Harley owners in Italy.
If you go to the Apple store opening, tell me how it went and post some pictures.