Ranjodh Deol

Windows Hotmail/Live Mail Active Sync Setup

Ranjodh — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 05:52:08 +0000

Finally, Microsoft has made it official that, starting today, Hotmail and Live Mail will support Exchange Active Sync (EAS) Technologies. What this means is Hotmail users will be able to get Email, Calendar and Contacts pushed to their devices, including Windows Phones, All iDevices, Outlook and some Android devices (Only 2.2). The only requirement is that device must support Microsoft ActiveSync Technology. All iDevices (iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad) supports EAS out of the box.

I am very excited with this news. Now I will be able to SYNC my contacts, calendar and email to cloud and between devices. I am waiting for Microsoft to release Live Mesh App for iDevices. Then I can think about replacing my paid MobileMe service. Anyway I have setup my Live Mail account on my iPhone and the following are simple steps to setup yours:

Tap on “Settings” –> “Mail, Contact, Calendar”
Tap on “Add Account” –> “Microsoft Exchange” (First choice on the screen)
Email: YourEmail@live.com or @hotmail.com
Domain: (Leave Blank)
Username: YourEmail@live.com or @hotmail.com
Password: YourSecretPassword
Description: of your choice
Tap on “Next” and Enter
Server: m.hotmail.com
Tap on “Next”
Toggle the service buttons ON or OFF
Tap on “Save” now and you are done.

Instructions for other devices can be found here

Outlook setup requires Hotmail Outlook Connector installed. Apple Mail is not supported by Hotmail ActiveSync yet.

Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 Arrives in October, Gets a Price

Ranjodh — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 00:07:25 +0000

Microsoft has announced that the long-awaited Office for Mac 2011 will hit U.S. store shelves at the end of October with three versions in 13 languages.

The Mac version of the popular productivity software will make its debut in three flavors: Office for Mac Home and Student 2011, Office for Mac Home and Business 2011 and Office for Mac Academic 2011. Home and Student 2011, which includes Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Messenger, will retail for $119 for an individual install and $149 for a Family Pack (three installs).

Office for Mac Home and Business 2011 will retail for a higher price: $199 for one install and $279 for two installs. However, it comes with a significant addition: Outlook for Mac, which replaces the less capable Entourage e-mail client. The Academic edition of Office, which includes all of the features of the Home and Business version, will cost $99, but is only available for students, faculty and staff of higher education institutions.

Office for Mac 2011 comes in 13 languages, including two new ones: Polish and Russian. This is on top of the English, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Spanish and Swedish versions, most of which will be released by the end of the year.

Mac users, are you going to get the new version of Office? What features do you want the most? Let us know in the comments.

Inception Explained with Infographic

Ranjodh Deol — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 17:25:25 +0000

If you have any confusion, after watching Inception, this should explain it…

By: Dehahs

How to reboot or shutdown Windows Server automatically

Ranjodh Deol — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 02:55:24 +0000

Sometime, after installing Windows updates, it is necessary to reboot the Windows server.

I have PsTools on OS root drive (c:/PsTools/) of all the servers and to reboot I use “psshutdown.exe” file.

So here is how I schedule automatic reboot on my Windows server.

Login with Administrator privileges user account
Open Command prompt (Start –> Run –> cmd) and enter the following command

c:> at 4:00am c:\PsTools\psshutdown.exe -r -f

Above give command will create a system scheduled task for Reboot. (Without any reason code to show in Event Viewer)

Task will run at 4:00 AM local server time
-r for Restart (Replace -r with -s for Shutdown)
-f Force close all open applications

As an alternative you can also utilize the windows inbuilt shutdown command as follows

c:\windows\system32\shutdown.exe -r -t [time-to-reboot-in-seconds] -f -m \\%computername% -d P:0:0 -c “Planned system reboot”

Enjoy!!

Robbie

PDF files are slow to print

Ranjodh Deol — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 01:20:13 +0000

Issue: When printing from any PDF reader (PDF Reader, FoxIt Reader) Windows Print dialog appears after long time

Resolution: This is caused by DEAD printers on your computer. Removing all the extra unused dead printers resolve the issue. To Remove Dead Unreachable printer follow the following steps:

Click “Start” then “Printers and Faxes”.
When the “Printers and Faxes” window appears, right-click on a printer, which you don’t use anymore, and choose “Delete”.
Confirm when prompted.

Now test printing from PDF and you will see Windows Print Dialog Instantly.

Enjoy