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iTWire: To give your Microsoft Exchange users the most flexible access options you really need an independent verified SSL certificate. Here’s how to do it fast and efficiently with a minimum of fuss and confusion.

iTWire: The problem with corporate networks is they not only stop the bad guys coming in but also your users who want to work remotely, whether at home, at a client site or on the road. Here is where a VPN product comes in, and the simplest to deploy on Windows is a Linux virtual appliance called OpenVPN.

It’s on, and I’m here. Microsoft Tech-Ed Australia is running from today until Friday 11th September on the sunny Gold Coast of Australia. An incredible 2000+ attendees are roaming about with HP Mini netbooks. Demonstrations have already begun of Exchange 2010, Office 2010 and Visual Studio 2010.

Wow! I’m inspired, I’m sold. Google Wave is the future of the 40-year old e-mail protocol, plus wrapping up IM, wikis, blogging, collaboration and more all in one new open protocol. Here’s what it is all about.

Thanks to Andrew Coates, I’ve just registered to take Microsoft exam 70-642 on Windows Server 2008 networking, next week.

I’m also interested in doing 70-640 but for some reason the Prometric web site didn’t list English as a language choice … !

You know a virus is big news when suddenly your users start asking about it instead of the usual “Good news” hoax variants (you know, “my friend’s brother’s uncle’s IT guy said don’t open an e-mail with the title ‘good news’ or it will melt your whole computer and eat your house. Microsoft has said there is NO cure !!!!!!”)

Now, good network admins already have their infrastructure under control – both for present and for future threats.

So, it’s prudent to send out an affirming message at this time letting your users know that they can have confidence their data will be protected from harm and they won’t suffer downtime.

Here are some template e-mails you can use – and not just for Windows, but for the Linux and MacOS guys too!

Here’s what I’ve written for iTWire this month …

Linux
Active Directory for Linux draws closer
Jolly new Cloud Computing OS seeks to bring netbook market back to Linux
Move over PC and Mac, it’s time for “I’m Linux”
Ubuntu 9.04’s blazing boot times
It’s 2009 and SCO are maintaining the Linux rage – what the ?
How does Ubuntu Linux differ from Debian?
How on earth does anyone make a dime out of Linux and open source?

Industry news and general tech
ASUS fighting at the top may spawn new brand
NSW Government job website hacked
Telstra release BlackBerry Bold software update
Xbox Live whets appetite with The Maw
Telstra mobile memo service suffers as Teletech offshores operations

Linux Australia elections
Congratulations Mr President – Linux Australia goes to the vote
Linux Australia elections results are in but is there a mandate?
Why didn’t people vote in the Linux Australia elections?

iTWire: With virtualisation becoming a mainstream technology, it’s becoming reasonable that Linux distros like Ubuntu will not always require a dedicated computer but instead be contained within a virtualised environment, whether on a Windows desktop or as part of a consolidated server farm. It’s not always plain sailing though – here are some problems you might encounter as well as their solutions.

iTWire: For every person who has said, “Let’s network these two computers” there are many more asking “Why is the network running so slow?” Yet, the ethereal nature of Ethernet has long made computer networks hard to decipher and many a business or home user has longed to peek into the data stream to see just what is going on. You could pay tens of thousands of dollars for the answer – but we’ll do it using freely available tools for Linux.

I attended a Telstra breakfast function this morning with an entertaining speaker whose name I don’t think I could pronounce but ended in “poff” leading some of us to call him the Telstra answer to David Hasslehoff.

I was interested in the view put forward – which has previously been observed in Japan – that mobile tech is becoming so sophisticated that the so-called “Generation Y” are using it for all their social networking needs and becoming less au fait with actual computers.

Telstra are working to deliver more actual applications through mobile telephony rather than just providing the cabling and network and infrastructure over which applications are made by someone else.

Some of the items shown today were IP telephony from the telephone exchange which while now available for business will become the residential phone platform in time.

Another was adding on speech to text processing in voicemail. This is brilliant yet so simple. Actually, I long ago determined I hate checking voicemail. I remember driving through regional Australia with mobile phone reception fading and coming back as I drove out of and back into towns. My phone would beep to say I had messages from calls I missed while I had no reception. Yet these towns were so small, I’d call 101 and before the first message could begin playing I’d gone out the other side and lost reception again.

Happily, the rise of BlackBerry made this so much better provided people used e-mail – which is, I’ll admit, my favoured form of communication. Sometimes if a message was complex or I was on the road or the caller didn’t speak very clearly I’d have to listen to voicemails several times. I switched to a memo service where my missed calls divert to a human operator who takes a message and sends me an SMS. This was a huge boon. I never since have had to call voicemail and I can respond to urgent matters when I am in a meeting or any other time where I am not able to dial voicemail but can read a message. However, as much as I love the message service, I find a lot of people telling me they’re not comfortable with talking to a human like that! That strikes me as somewhat humorous, given the fact they’ve called me means they prefer voice to e-mail communication anyway. Nevertheless, I tried out the speech to text service on two people and it’s just brilliant. The callers have no idea anything is different; the experience of depositing a voicemail is unchanged. Yet these staff members now receive their messages via text (with the voice message still available for review) but precisely as was said by the caller. It’s not stilted or formal or brief like when leaving a message with an answering service; it’s friendly and natural. The texts would faithfully reproduce “G’day”, “gimme” and the like. The parsing was so good in each test that it made me wonder if a village of Indians had been hired to sit in a room and transcribe rather it genuinely being automated. I’m really thinking of changing from my answering service back to voicemail!

There were other things announced, one being the intention to take NextG speeds up to 40mb/s within a mere couple of years. This is tremendous, with NextG being increasingly essential to performing business anytime, anywhere. I certainly know that armed with my laptop and BlackBerry and NextG modem I can manage my whole infrastructure no matter where I am.

Which takes me back to the beginning – I think mobile devices are great, they give me a lot of functionality and connectivity – but to me this connectivity backs up and enables my laptop and computing applications. I couldn’t use my mobile phone as my one and only device.

What about you? Do you think mobiles are the future of personal computing?