Stenstrøm Consulting

Check out the Sandbox!

Frode — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:55:29 +0000

My main employer has launched a great blog over at http://sandkasse.eddamedia.no/. We write about technical aspects in the media business and Edda Media specifically. (In Norwegian only, but you can use Google translate if you like)
Look closely and you will find a few posts from me.

Warning: Major security bug in the official Flickr app for the iPhone

Frode — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 12:36:54 +0000

A colleague of mine just installed the new iPhone Flickr app. He then added me as his contact. As soon as he did, he could see all my private photos before I added him as a contact! I believe this is a major security flaw, that gives anyone with an iPhone access to photos that are not publically shared.

Update: I reapplied the security settings on all of my photos, to make sure that they are correct. This seems to have solved the issue partly. I still do not know why photos were visable in the iPhone app and not my photo stream online.

Twitter and I

Frode — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 17:11:50 +0000

I am in the process of removing about half of the people I follow. If you want to know why then read on.

I started using Twitter actively around February this year. Without cheating, I got about 5400 followers in about five months. I spent a lot of time on Twitter – to much time. Twitter felt like a chore. After a while I did something which is not good: I posted to many links and replied very little to people sending me tweets. For that I am sorry.

Many have asked me why I more or less stopped Tweeting, and the answer lies partly in the above situation: Twitter felt like a chore. Another part is the fact that I started spending more and more time over at Friendfeed. I found that Friendfeed has a lot what to offer (an it still does until it is merged with Facebook). The discussions are of high quality and value. Trying to balance Friendfeed and Twitter was – and still is – a challenge.

Something had to happen, so I took time off both Friendfeed, Facebook and Twitter for about six weeks this summer. This gave me time to start again and rethink my strategy for using Social Networks. I love social networks, but I love my “real” life more.

So, I will still differentiate the different networks like I did before, but the way I use Twitter is changing fast:

Facebook will be for people I have met (a few exceptions apply). I no longer cross post between Facebook and other networks, as the group of people in each network is different. I also post to Facebook in Norwegian only.
Friendfeed will be used for detailed discussions and is a good source of information related to the Tech industry and Social Networks.
- I normally do not subscribe to the people subscribing to me, because Friendfeed has the best search function. I use the search feature to find things that interest me posted by anyone on Friendfeed. Thus, I don’t need to spend time managing a subscriber/follower list like on Twitter. (I know I can use search at Twitter, but there is no contest between the two services as far as search goes.)
- I use Friendfeed’s Friends and Group feature to organize the people I do subscribe to, all in a great web interface.
- My only gripe with Friendfeed is the lack of posts related to Project Management and Enterprise Architecture. I do believe this will change once Friendfeed and Facebook is merged together.
Twitter – I used to follow back anyone and everyone. I will now follow back if the person:
- Is a person and not spammer
- Does not try to sells me stuff
- Is not tweeting stuff like “how to gain followers fast”
- Works with Tech, CRM, Project Management or other topics related to my professional life
- Is a person that I would like to maintain a relationship with in my personal life.
- Or, is a person with humor and personality that contribute to Twitter in a positive manner.
Linkedin – For professional relations, past and present. (Though I do not spend much time on the site)
Plaxo – Used for exchange of contact information. I am thinking of deleting the account, as they now charge for Outlook integration
Google Reader – Still used as a primary source of all types of information, but the service is increasingly getting more and better features targeting the social networks scene.

A consequence of my changed strategy is that I am following fewer and fewer people on Twitter. Do not take it personally if I am not following you back. I do not take it personally if people stop following me. I still read all replies to me and respond to them. In fact, the best way to get me to follow you back, is to send me a reply. The goal here is to get a Twitter stream tailored to my interest and the time I have available to spend on Twitter.

A side effect of this: You can trust that the list of people that I do follow, are all worthy of a #followfriday recommendation. (I am not done with cleaning out the list, but I am getting there.)

My strategy might seem arrogant to you. It is not meant to be. I just would like to get back to the point where I find Twitter to be fun again, and to a point where I can share my own thoughts, ideas and information with the community.

Thank you for reading!

Configure Remote Administration from a Windows 7 client (RSAT)

Frode — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 07:45:04 +0000

Now that Windows 7 is out, many Windows administrators need to be able to manage their IT environment such as the Active Directory. I am happy to share with you that Microsoft has released RSAT both for 32 bit and 64 bit operating systems:

The documentation that follows is OK, but I would like to give one tip of my own:

Most environments require (and should require) that administration is done using an administrator account different from the one you use to logon to your PC. Windows 7 will allow you to start “Active Directory Users and Computers” as your logon user or a local computer administrator. This should normally not give you access to using the RSAT tools. The trick is as follows: Use SHIFT + Right Click the mouse on any program. This will give you the menu option “Run as different user”. Enter you domain administrator credentials and you are done.

A Norwegian Dynamics CRM User Group?

Frode — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 18:48:57 +0000

As far as I know, there does not exist a local User Group for Microsoft Dynamics CRM in Norway. I do now that the www.dnd.no does have a group for CRM but they are not product focused.

I would like to start such a group and would love to hear from my Norwegian readers if this is something that you would like to join?

The idea of the group is to discuss and share solutions/code relevant to areas like:

Customer data maintenance
Credit checks
Phone/Dialer integrations

I would also love for the group to share ideas and code related to workflows and business automation using the .Net framework and Biztalk.

Drop me a comment or use the contact form on the top of this page.

What will be your next phone?

Frode — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 21:22:54 +0000

Assuming you are looking to buy a new phone. What will you buy? Give your rank here:

Apple IPhone 3G S

Frode — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 20:59:01 +0000

Todays announcement of new Apple software and hardware is more than well covered by the press and social networks. What is not so well known is the release date of the new IPhone 3G S handsets here in Norway. My sources indicate that it should be shipping July 9th, 2009.

Don't pay for PDF Merge/Split tools!

Frode — Sun, 24 May 2009 16:19:49 +0000

I was looking for a simple tool that would allow me to split an Acrobat PDF file to many smaller PDF files. Instead of one file with 10 pages, I wanted ten files with one page each. Searching Google, I found many shareware/trialware tools that does what I wanted. Then I came across this little tool, that does the job for free. +1 for opensource software.

Biztalk 2009 Documentation and ESB Update available

Frode — Wed, 20 May 2009 11:55:49 +0000

Microsoft has published several new downloadable documents following the latest release of BizTalk 2009. Here is a list of them: (Click read more to continue)

There's also an Interactive Scale-out Configurations Poster, which requires Silverlight and the use of the Interactive Capabilities Reader.

Also, be sure to check out Presentations From The Microsoft SOA/BMP Conference 2009.

ESB Guidance

"Microsoft have just announced that previously available from and supported only by the open source .NET community Codeplex ESB Guidance is going to be included into the Microsoft BizTalk Server 2009 Suite with a new name “Microsoft BizTalk ESB Toolkit 2.0″. You can still download it for free from the Codeplex starting as soon as mid-June, but the customer support and continues release of new versions will now be managed by Microsoft BizTalk Server product team."

You can watch talk about this topic from TechEd 2009 Online on the subject of leveraging BizTalk Server 2009 as an Enterprise Service Bus here: The interview describes what ESB is with reference to real life situations.

Gratulerer med 17 mai

Frode — Sun, 17 May 2009 10:40:40 +0000

I wish everyone a happy celebration of Norway's May 17th today. :)

Congratulations to Norway

Frode — Sat, 16 May 2009 21:29:22 +0000

For winning the Eurovision song contest

Site theming

Frode — Fri, 08 May 2009 20:22:25 +0000

I have started learning more about Drupal themes. This site will change a bit while I do. Send me a message if you love to do this stuff, and would be willing to help.

Can OpenID and OAuth lead us to manageable security

Frode — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 20:02:57 +0000

There is speculation going that Twitter will be launching Twitter Connect, an identity "light" service similar to Facebook connect. This naturally started a debate over at Friendfeed.com. Rob Diana wrote a commentary on the topic at http://regulargeek.com/2009/04/20/can-openid-and-oauth-lead-us-to-manageable-security/ that I though you might like to read. (Click "Read More" to continue.)

I think we are at a great beginning of change to how authentication is done on the Internet. Hopefully, we can get a better user experience by consolidating login username/passwords to a few open IDs. Microsoft, Google, Facebook, AOL and now possibly Twitter are all speeding up to become OpenID providers as well as creating their own methods for authentication across services.

Why is this important? Well, for one, it increases security on the net by allowing you to have one strong username/password combo for your OpenID and use this in many sites. The sites that are OpenID "consumer" do not store this information about you.

But the biggest thing is for the consumer. You can login once across many different services, such as the comment section of this blog, (using your facebook credentials).

Your password can be change one place for many sites, and if you loose trust in your provider, you can change to one you do trust.

So let us hope to see more sites that actually "consume" OpenID services. Otherwise, this will be a chicken and an egg situation, but without the chicken! :)

What's new in Microsoft Exchange 2010?

Frode — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 06:06:35 +0000

Microsoft Exchange is for one of the major players in the e-mail server marked. I was the project manager on deploying Exchange 2007 to about 6000 people in two countries for about two years ago. I got a tip from Paul Robichaux over at Twitter that the Official beta for Exchange 2010 is ready for download. Let's have a look at what is new since Exchange 2007.. (Click Read more to continue)

Any major release will have many new features that are best documented at Microsoft Technet for Exchange 2010. If you want to download the bits, go to Microsoft Download.I would like to focus on those features that are important to the consumer: What will a new e-mail server mean to us?

The answer lies as far as I can see in two areas:

Improvement of an already very good web mail client
Unified Messaging features

Web Mail - Outlook Web Access (OWA)

Summary of new features

Favorites in the Navigation Pane
Search folders
Message filtering
The ability to set categories in the message list
Options in the Web management interface for Outlook Web Access
A side-by-side view for calendars
Multi-client language support
The ability to attach messages to messages
Expanded right-click capabilities
Integration with Office Communicator, including presence, chat, and a contact list
Conversation view
The ability to send and receive text (SMS) messages from Outlook Web Access
Outlook Web Access mailbox policies

But perhaps the biggest change, is the fact that Microsoft is adapting common standards relevant to the Internet. What this means is that OWA fully supports Safari on Mac OS X (not Windows) and Firefox on the Mac and Windows, along with IE 7+ on Windows. Safari and Firefox get the full premium OWA experience, with drag-and-drop, spell checking, notifications, and the rest.

Furthermore, OWA will now support conversation threads like Gmail does. Regular Outlook also supports conversation threads, but the user experience of the new OWA will be much appreciated.

Lastly, OWA will also suport multi services, such as the company exchange server and your private e-mail account.

Unified Messaging

Microsoft's attetion to this area is greatly increased the last few years, with the R2 release of Office Communications Server 2007 i Febuary 2009. Cisco have had solutions in this area for years, but Microsoft is good at markeding their products like there is now alternativ.

This initative is now expanded to Exchange 2010. If you would like to learn more about Unified Messaging, then check out Wikipedia.

For us end users, here is what to look for:

Personal Auto Attendants (Call Answering Rules)

In Exchange 2010, the Unified Messaging server role allows UM-enabled users to create and customize personal auto attendants to enhance the call answering experience of their callers. When a user is UM-enabled, no personal auto attendant is created. Instead, the existing Exchange 2010 voice mail remains the default call answering behavior. However, users can create up to nine personal auto attendants.

A personal auto attendant is similar to the Exchange Server 2007 UM auto attendant (AA) feature. There is usually a greeting, menu prompt, and a list of options to choose from. The key difference is in the context of the call. When the personal auto attendant answers the incoming call, Unified Messaging already knows who the call is for. This shows that the feature set required for personal auto attendants is different from that of the auto attendants.

Using a personal auto attendant, a caller can:

Leave a voice message for the UM-enabled user.
Transfer to an alternate contact of the UM-enabled user.
Transfer to an alternate contact's voice mail of the UM-enabled user.
Transfer to other phone numbers that the UM-enabled user has configured.
Use the Find-Me feature or locate the UM-enabled user via a supervised transfer.

Voice Mail Preview

In Exchange 2010, the Unified Messaging role uses ASR on newly created voice messages. When users receive a voice mail, they receive a message that contains not just a recording, but also text that has been created from the voice recording. Users see the voice mail text displayed in the e-mail message from within Outlook Web Access, Outlook 2007, or the next version of Outlook.

Message Waiting Indicator

Message Waiting Indicator is a feature found in most legacy voice mail systems and can refer to any mechanism that indicates the existence of a new message. However, in Exchange 2007, this functionality was provided by a third-party application, which indicated receipt of a new voice mail by lighting the lamp on the desk phone. This feature has been added to Exchange 2010, and third-party software is not needed. Enabling or disabling Message Waiting Indicator is done on the user's mailbox or on a UM mailbox policy.

Missed Call and Voice Mail Notifications using SMS

When users are members of a hosted or consumer dial plan, and they configure their voice mail settings with their cell phone number and configure call forwarding, both missed call and new voice mail notifications can be configured to be sent to the users' cell phones using Short Messaging Service (SMS) or text messaging. However, for missed call and voice mail notifications to be sent to users, users must configure text messaging and also enable the missed call and voice messages setting on their account.

Did I miss something?

Do you know of any other featers in Exchange 2010 that are important to the consumer? Let me know in the comments section. I will update the article.

Microsoft improves the development environment for CRM

Frode — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 19:49:24 +0000

One of the things that I like about the Dynamics CRM product from Microsoft is how easy it is to get things done without writing code. However, many times, you need to get your hands dirty in order to create solutions of real business value.
Transporting standard solutions/customizations between a development and production environment is easy, but for custom code, it gets harder. But Microsoft released a new toolkit on April the 13th, that will simplify this.

A qoute from the MS Blog:
Integrate the Build and Deploy Process
Build scripts provided with the Toolkit simplify the process of building and deploying a CRM solution. They prepare the environment, obtain and publish the latest customizations, perform code analysis, register CRM Plug-ins, deploy the solution and execute Unit Test cases.

Deploy Across Multiple Servers
The deployment tool assists in deployment and maintenance of Windows installer packages across multiple environments.

Read the full details here. http://blogs.msdn.com/crm/archive/2009/04/13/announcing-the-microsoft-dynamics-crm-dev-toolkit.aspx. The Microsoft Dynamics CRM Developer Toolkit is available free of charge from the MSDN Code Galleries at http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/E2DevTkt.
We will be testing this in the project starting May 4th. I will write about our findings then.

Google Analytics and IPhone/IPod Touch

Frode — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 19:10:55 +0000

I just found a great little iPhone app for accessing Google Analytics. Great for accessing your web stats on-the-go.
Check out MacWorld´s review. They gave the app a good 5,5 score.
You can get the app using this link to iTunes store for USD 5,99.

Good introduction to Drupal and more advanced use

Frode — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 17:21:49 +0000

I started this site to learn about Drupal. Drupal is a great content management system, but the learning curve can be steep. It has taken me quite a while to learn about do´s and don´ts. One site that was helpful to me in the beginning is a site by David Newkerk. A recommended read for anyone starting to use Drupal.

Front Row not working with a Windows file server

Frode — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 11:39:30 +0000

I recently purchased a Mac Mini to run Front Row. The intention was to replace my Windows Media center. Imagine my disappointment when Front Row would not works....
Front Row starts as expected but gave the error "Unable to find any music". After investigating the problem I found that this is caused by the fact that I am using iTunes with all media files stored on a Windows 2008 File Server.
iTunes was working just fine. (Version 8.1)
Resolution:

Upgrade Front Row to support iTunes 8.1 This did not solve the problem, but is recommended anyway.
Use Finder to create an alias of the iTunes folder on the Windows File Server to your ~/Music folder. Remove any trace of the old iTunes folder in this location.

Note, I first tried using soft links (ln -s source ~/Music/iTunes). This does not work.
Hope this will help anyone that have the same problem/setup.

Biztalk 2009 Released

Frode — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 16:30:08 +0000

Biztalk 2009 is released as planned. Get it at Microsoft Licensing web site as usual. The good news: Upgrade from 2006 can be very simple for even advanced orchistrations.
The support for Team Foundation Server is much appreciated. I am looking forward to testing the upgrade.

What is your age?

Frode — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 21:44:49 +0000

I am looking to find what the avarage age is for the Friendfeed use community.

Website layout

Frode — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 19:46:17 +0000

So far, my focus is on getting a layout and panels in orders using CSS. Once that is in place, I will focus more on themes and then content...

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Accelerators

Frode — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 16:30:30 +0000

For those who are waiting for the much anticipated accelerator kits for Dynamics CRM:
I have been told that the accelerators will be avaliable for partner download October 25 2009. I can't!

Site profile

Frode — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:14:51 +0000

Give the you, the reader, a list of articles on the Internet, such as blog posts, news posts, and dicussion threads that are well worth reading
My own work related articles/blog

Both focus areas are related to the challenges that I meet in the projects that I am involved in. This means that this sites content for the most part will contain topics such as: Project Management, Information technology (CRM; Collaboration; ERP/ERM; SOA), Methologies (ITIL; CobiT; PMI's PMBOK; SOX)
The first area of content will normally be updated on a daily basis. I follow about 500 different internet sites each day, using the Google Reader service, and share those articles I find of high value to me personally.
The site will provide and RSS feed as soon as Google has completed the integration of FeedBurner.com into their standard portfolio.

Welcome

Frode — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 18:43:33 +0000

This site needed to be refreshed, so now I am using the site to learn about Drupal.