A Cool Firefox Add-in

I was just introduced to a cool new add-in for Firefox, called GooglePedia. This cool little tool splits Google's search results screen into two windows, the left side containing your search results, the right side containing a Wikipedia screen containing your search string.

If you use Firefox, then take a look, very cool! If you don't, what's wrong? Download Firefox now and get on the bandwagon. The inline spell check of web forms (like blog posts) alone is worth it.

Build your own website for only pennies a day

Nowadays, it seems almost everyone has their own website. You can shop for your groceries, order a pizza and even buy a home all from the comforts of your arm-chair. So, why don't you have your own website all about you. I do!

What? No technical expertise? Bah. No dedicated connection to the Internet? Bah. I know, you don't have the slightest idea of where to get started. Ah! That I can help with.

Here are my very easy steps to get you running with your own website in just a couple minutes work. (The hard part comes later, when you try keeping the content fresh!)

1. Start a blog. Go to Wordpress, Blogger or one of the millions of blog sites and create an account. You don't need to be too creative naming it, just something. Take note of the address to link to it for later.
2. Register a domain name. Ah! the expensive part. (Expensive I mean $6 to $15 a year). Go to one of the multitude of domain name registrars and get yourself a domain name. (Sorry EricWoodford.com is already taken.) I personally use dotdnr as they have a fairly easy site to navigate and they provide a multitude of domains (ever want a .tv domain?), but don't be afraid of sites like GoDaddy.com (and use SCOTT1 to save 10%) if the price is right for you. NOTE:Don't have them create a site for you. You already did that in the last step.
3. Setup your DNS server. When you registered your domain name, they should have asked for a name server (like NS1.dotdnr.com). These are the server's that will eventually host your (domain) name. Go to zoneedit.com and create yourself a free DNS account. You will need to enter the domain name that you registered and they will provide you two name servers. (almost done!)
4. Update your name servers. Now that you have your name servers from ZoneEdit, go back to your domain name registrar and enter them in their interface. Now people who look up your domain, where to find you (at ZoneEdit).
5. (Finally) Redirect your web traffic. So far, when people type in your domain name, it will go nowhere. It may go to a psuedo "Under Contruction" site setup by the domain registrar, but not likely (or very useful). ZoneEdit has a great feature called WebForward. Using this you can silently redirect people to the blog site we setup in step 1. Simply click the 'webforward' link for your new domain, type in the blog address into the destination field and select the cloaked? checkbox. This will hide the actual blog domain name, and only show yours.
6. Now you just need to wait. Typically domain name registrar's will replicate information every few hours out to the Internet. I'd give it 24 hours (and test it) before broadcasting your new website to all your friends.

So, there's nothing stopping you now. Get creating that new content and let the world know who you are. Leave me a comment here with a link to your site, and if I agree with your content, I'll post it here for others to review. Note: Spammers, I will just delete your comment and not look back.

Chain mail, A Spammers Best Friend!

I just received the latest joke/hoax/chain-mail from a family/friend/co-worker regarding some new issue, scam or sentiment. When this person forwarded along the message, I had to skim through pages upon pages of valid e-mail addresses to get to the actual message, which ended with "forward to all your family and friends".

Thanks to this person, I made $$$ with very little work. How? I extracted out all 200+ (validated and real) e-mail addresses, then forwarded the file off to a website that collects e-mail addresses. (Spammers pay extra for validated e-mail address like these, you know!!)

With a little effort, the friend/family/co-worker could have avoided the pending spam.

1. Remove all extra mail headers. Open the embedded messages down to the one containing the content you are forwarding out.
2. Remove all other e-mail addresses Often chain-mail will include all the former recipients,
3. BCC all recipients. This hides the e-mail addresses of your inteded recipients. You can spoof the TO address using something you know won't work. "Eric@Example.com"

Working together we can help decrease the amount of spam that we all get. On the other hand, keep sending me your messages, and I'll keep making a few bucks in the process.

Computer Slow? How about these?

Now that you've been using that computer for awhile now, it is now slowing down, to a crawl, and you don't know what to do.. I've put together this short article to cover some of the basics that I check for with slow computers.

Computer slowness can often be attributed to too many applications running in memory. When you first start up Windows, it has a series of programs that automatically launch at startup. These programs add functionality to your computer, behind-the-scenes. Most are begnign like your anti-virus solution or functional like Google Desktop, but there are also programs on your computer that you might not want.

• Virus infections are the most common cause of PC slowness. A virus will use your computer's processing power to replicate itself to as many other computers as possible. When a virus infects a computer, typically it adds itself to the startup routine. Now each time the computer boots the virus is loaded into memory. Some viruses are harmless and generate pop-ups, some are malicious and delete or overwrite files.

  All viruses have some method of spreading themselves. Since 2000 with the ILOVEYOU virus, viruses have utilized Internet e-mail to deliver to unsuspecting recipients. A virus will attach itself to an e-mail message with friendly looking body, enticing the user to open the message. Once opened, the virus grabs their e-mail systems address list and sends a copy of itself to everyone (spoofing the FROM address on each e-mail). Inside a corporate environment, the virus may go once to everyone in the address list, then again to each of the distribution lists.

  To keep from being infected, follow two simple rules. Don't open an e-mail you did not anticipate. "I never get attachments from my uncle, what is this??" and update your local virus scanner at least once a week. There is at least 10 new viruses written each week and any one of these has the potential to do harm. Only 1 each year will reach "TV News worthy".

  If you think you are currently infected, check out HouseCall by Trend Micro. It can scan and clean your computer over the Internet. You will need a fairly fast Internet connection. Otherwise, download and install a desktop anti-virus solution. I've listed two in the resources section at the end of this article.

• Spyware and errant applications - If you've installed some of the popular P2P applications, you may very likely have spyware running on your computer. This software watches what you do, places you go, and can popup ads for products on the web, that may be relevant to your search, or adult-related. In addition, some SPAM e-mail has even started including 'quiet' installs of spyware. (I've been hit this way with all the Spam e-mail I deal with for work.) In Windows XP, if you hit CTRL-ALT-DEL the popup will have a link to the Windows Task Manager. Check the Processes Tab for everything running on your computer. You can search Google for items you don't recognize (like tcpsvcs.exe?). Stop items you don't need, then run one of the Anti-spyware products below. You may have to reboot and scan again to clean some memory resident programs.
• Server providers, like TivoToGo, or MoodLogic have applications running constantly to allow access to content on your local computer. This allows remote users to share your music, photos or videos stored on your computer. Shutting them down prevents remote access, but you can shut them down when you need that extra speed. Or only load them when you want to access those MP3s from your TIVO box!
• Multimedia add-ons, like Real Player has functionality to watch your Internet traffic and automatically load with any RA format files. Same with Quicktime. I've gone through and disabled these products from loading their products.
• System limitations, like lack of hard drive space or not enought system memory can cause slowness. Windows utilizes approximately 10% of your hard drive for virtual memory. This allows you to switch between programs and put on in 'background' mode, by offloading the app to your hard drive. When you have very little system memory (RAM), you are constantly swapping programs to the much slower hard drive. When the hard drive is near capacity, it only swaps smaller bits and forces more apps to run in what available memory you have. Freeing up space on your C:\ drive is crucial. This may require adding an additional hard drive on your computer. If you have at least 10% free on your C: drive, look at your system memory size. (Under Accessories | System Tools, run System Information). Compare this size with the maximum that your computer's motherboard can recognize. Windows XP requires at least 64MB of memory to run, but ideally, you should have closer to 256MB or 512MB. (The next version of Windows will require 512 to 1GB of RAM). Memory chips are typically available for computers up to 5-7 years old. The technology has moved so fast that older computers are only partially supported. You might have luck searching on eBay?

  I hope this helps with your computer's slowness.

  Resources:

  1. Anti-Virus:
     • Pc-Cillin
     • Grisoft - Free!
  2. Spyware:
     • AdAware
     • Spyware Search & Destroy - Free!
  3. Eliminate Spam from e-mail:
     • SpamBayes - Free!

Convert and configure Exchange 2007 conference room mailbox

Having recently migrated all of our department to Exchange 2007, we were excited to take advantage of the new conference room functionality! No more Outlook Resource configuration, no more faulty Auto-Accept script! Microsoft has FINALLY programmed in full-fledged resource mailbox functionality into Exchange.

Our dilemna. After migration from Exchange 2003, our resource mailboxes were showing up in the Exchange Management console as LinkedMailbox type.

get-mailbox "resource mailbox" | select RecipientTypeDetails

To convert them to UserMailbox type, Microsoft informed us that we'd need to disconnect the mailbox (from the AD account, then reconnect it. Afterwards, we can run the powershell cmdlet to assign the conference room calendar settings.

Sounds easy enough.

Disable-Mailbox -identity "Resource Mailbox"
Connect-Mailbox -identity "Resource Mailbox" -database (it's db) -user "domain\rsrmbxacct"

Right?? Nope.

1. To connect a domain account to a mailbox, the account needs to be enabled. We've disabled all our resource accounts.
2. When you enable an account, it needs to have a valid password based on your security standards.
3. You have to wait for replication, which may not be immediately.

My following code, will read a straight list of mailbox names, and convert them from LinkedMailbox type mailboxes, to RoomMailbox type, then configure it as a conference room based on the following criteria.

• Auto-Accept Meeting requests (if meet policy) - isn't that the point of this excercise?
• Add Organizer name to subject - so when you use Plan a Meeting, you can see who has the time you want.
• Not allow conflicts - There is something to be said about allowing a certain amount of conflicts.
• Allow recurring meetings - booking individual meeting is just silly.
• Booking Window: 366 days - Furthest out you can book is until today's date, next year.
• Maximum Meeting Duration: 24hrs - should be booking as recurring. Too many times have I seen someone book a 2 hr, daily meeting that starts on Monday at 8AM, and ends Friday at 10AM. When they really wanted a 2hr meeting that Starting at 8am, on M,T,W,Th,F.
• Remove Attachments - Helps keep the conference room mailbox small. The conference room is NEVER going to read the agenda.
• Remove Private property - Private meetings don't appear on the Plan A Meeting view, if you don't have the specific permissions. So, don't let people book them.
• Delete Comments - Another trick to keep the conference room mailbox small.
• Delete Non Calendar Items - Yet another trick. People like to send 'message' based on the attendees of a specific meeting. Here come the meeting agendas!
• Disable Reminders - Nothing a delegate (or admin) hates more is having to wait to dismiss thousands of meeting reminders.


cls
#The following file contains list of mailbox display names, seperated by a carriage return.
$Rooms = Get-Content -path ".\AllConferenceRooms.txt"

#Set this variable to $true for normal conference rooms
#set this variable to $false for director conference rooms
#---------------------------
$NormalCRoom = $True
$Delegates = @("delegate1@example.com","delegate2@example.com")

#If this will be a 'director-type' conference room.
if ($NormalCRoom -eq $False){
$Delegates += "Delegate3@example.com"
}

foreach ($MyMailbox in $Rooms) {
$MyMailbox = $MyMailbox.Trim()

if (($MyMailbox -ne $null) -and ($mymailbox -ne '')){
#Gathering some information
#---------------------------
$Mbx = get-mailbox $MyMailbox
$MyMailbox = $Mbx.DisplayName
"Working on '" + $MyMailbox + "'"
"-------------------------------------"

$mbxUPN = $mbx.UserPrincipalName
$DB = $Mbx | select database| % {Get-MailboxDatabase -Identity $_.database}

if ($Mbx.RecipientTypeDetails -eq "LinkedMailbox") {
"Linked mailbox - converting to UserMailbox"
Disable-mailbox $MyMailbox -erroraction stop -outvariable Result

#Pausing script while waiting for the Disable-Mailbox command to process.
do {
$isDisabled = get-user -identity $mbxUPN
} while ( $isDisabled.recipienttype -eq "UserMailbox")

#Create a new password for the account based on the UPN field.
"Setting account password to :'"+$mbxUPN + "'"
$pwd = new-object Security.SecureString
$mbxUPN.ToCharArray() | foreach { $pwd.AppendChar($_)}
Set-QADUser -Identity $mbxUPN -UserPassword $pwd

"Reconnecting mailbox to domain account"
## found I needed to enble the AD account to get next step to work.
enable-qaduser -identity $mbxUPN
Connect-mailbox -identity $MyMailbox -database $DB -user $mbxUPN
disable-qaduser -identity $mbxUPN

#Pausing script to wait for AD replication
do {
$isDisabled = get-user -identity $mbxUPN
} while ( $isDisabled.recipienttype -ne "UserMailbox")
$Mbx = get-mailbox $MyMailbox
}

#Convert standard mailbox to conference room resource
if ($Mbx.RecipientTypeDetails -eq "UserMailbox") {
"Converting to Conference Room mailbox"
Set-Mailbox -identity $MyMailbox -Type room

do {
$isDisabled = get-user -identity $mbxUPN
} while ( $isDisabled.RecipientTypeDetails -ne "RoomMailbox")
$Mbx = get-mailbox $MyMailbox
}

#configure conference room.
if ($Mbx.RecipientTypeDetails -eq "RoomMailbox") {
if ($NormalCRoom -eq $true) {
"Configuring the conference room to auto accept meeting requests"
Set-MailboxCalendarSettings -Identity $MyMailbox -AddOrganizerToSubject $true -AllBookInPolicy $true -AllowConflicts $false -AllowRecurringMeetings $true -AutomateProcessing AutoAccept -BookingWindowInDays 366 -Confirm -DeleteAttachments $true -DeleteComments $true -DeleteNonCalendarItems $true -DisableReminders $true -EnableResponseDetails $true -EnforceSchedulingHorizon $true -MaximumDurationInMinutes 720 -AddAdditionalResponse $false -OrganizerInfo $true -RemoveForwardedMeetingNotifications $true -RemoveOldMeetingMessages $true -RemovePrivateProperty $true
} else {
"Configuring the conference room to as a 'Director-type' mailbox"

Set-MailboxCalendarSettings -Identity $MyMailbox -AddOrganizerToSubject $true -AllBookInPolicy $false -AllowConflicts $false -AllowRecurringMeetings $true -AutomateProcessing AutoAccept -BookingWindowInDays 366 -Confirm -DeleteAttachments $true -DeleteComments $true -DeleteNonCalendarItems $true -DisableReminders $true -EnableResponseDetails $true -EnforceSchedulingHorizon $true -MaximumDurationInMinutes 720 -AddAdditionalResponse $false -OrganizerInfo $true -RemoveForwardedMeetingNotifications $true -RemoveOldMeetingMessages $true -RemovePrivateProperty $true -AllRequestInPolicy $true -ForwardRequestsToDelegates $true
}

foreach ($Person in $Delegates) {
"Assigning "+$Person + " mailbox rights on this resource"
Add-MailboxPermission -AccessRights FullAccess -Identity $MyMailbox -User $Person
}

"Assiging "+$delegates + " as Delegates to this resource."
Set-MailboxCalendarSettings -Identity $MyMailbox -ResourceDelegates $Delegates
}

"Completed."
" "
" "
}
}


Creating a fancy Outlook signature

Sure creating a signature in Outlook is easy. Open Outlook, type in some information, change a few settings and you'll have a decent looking signature. Now, if you want to include a graphic (like a company logo), or use HTML, you have to get a bit more fancy.

That is why I developed this script. This script makes it rather easy to build a fancy signature using various colors, fonts and font sizes. In addition, I have coded functionality to include the graphic (if it is on an external webserver). To make it easier, I have even coded the script to pull information from Active Directory (thanks to a script I found). Drawback being it doesn't work if it cannot access a local domain controller. I am going to work on that. I'd like to use the script at home..

Digital Camera, I Love You!

Back when my daughter was born, we were taking pictures of everything. "What a cute smile!" (click) "Oh she is biting that toy" (click) "She's finally asleep!" (click) (click) (click) (click) (click). This ended up to be one roll of standard 35mm film each day. Two months later, we were spending more on film developing, than on diapers! We started doing research on the multitude of options. The day before my sister-in-law's wedding in June 2002, we bought a Sony digital camera.

This camera, along with a 128mb memory stick (MS) allowed us to take approximately 60 pictures at a time. During the wedding, one of us would run upstairs in the hotel, download pictures, and come back. If I remember right, we took close to 600 pictures this way. According to family members, some of our pictures turned out better than the professional photographers. :) We were able to share our pictures out on Ofoto, and anyone could view them within a few days after the wedding. (The photographer took almost 2 months.) Plus, they could order copies for themselves, and we did not have to pay for the processing!!

Now 3 years later, we still have that camera, and have invested in second, smaller Sony camera (DSC-W5). This camera, has 32mb on-board and can use the Sony PRO Memory Sticks! With our 4GB PRO memory stick, we can take 1,660 (5 megapixel) pictures on a single outing! We never transfered pictures to the laptop the entire 8-days in Maui (over 750 pictures and videos). Additionally, the camera and 4Gb MS allow us to record up to 3 hours of continuous DVD quality video! No longer need to bring along our bulky Mini-DV video camera either!!

Unfortunately with digital cameras there are a number of technical considerations. If my computer where I am storing all the images dies, catches fire, or is stolen, I will lose 3 years of pictures. Also, with the simplicity of taking pictures and considering the low cost of viewing them, we now take multiples of each image (horizontal, vertical, with smiles, with a pose, candid, standing in front of the car, behind the car, etc.). In essence, there is virtually no limitations to how many pictures we can take on a single outing.
Technically, what does all this mean?

• Storage concerns: Well, we currently have over 20gb or at least 10,000 pictures stored on my computer at home. To make sure I do not lose all 3 years of pictures, I backup the pictures, in folders to DVD-R's on a regular basis. In addition to off-line storage, I am now looking into adding a third hard drive to my comptuer to mirror the drives. This will create a real-time copy of all our pictures on a second source. If the first hard drive crashes, I would always have the second.
• Indexing: To help categorize all my pictures and help locate images, a year ago, I added an index document to each collection of pictures. The index file is a simple text document containing a list of words describing the collection of pictures ("trip to SF Zoo", "My Birtday Party"). Using Windows SEARCH functionality, I search all the subfolders for this single document containing for keywords in each document. "My Birthday".
• Organization: To make it easier to locate a single image, I have been organizing images into folders based on date downloaded from the camera. At first I was using OFoto's utility to download the images, but this did not accomodate the videos on the camera. So they had to be transfered by hand. Then I developed a Batch Script to process photos and one to process the videos. Finally I combined the script into a single button press on my computer.I insert the MS into my card reader, then double-click the icon to run the script! The script moves all the images to a new folder (on Windows XP) to "My Documents\My Pictures\Year\Date" and the Videos to "My Documents\My Videos\Year\Date". The script even copies the index file into the new folder and opens it for editing

To use the attached file, you will need a unZIPing program like WinZip or 7-Zip. Open the file and extract the two files to your My Pictures folder. I'd suggest creating a shortcut on your desktop. (Hold down right-mouse button, drag to your desktop, release file and select "Create Shortcut".)

Copy and paste the following code into a file called MoveFiles.BAT. You will need to edit the script to reference the drive your memory stick connects to. Change the line Set MyMS= to point to your drive.

@echo off
Set MyMS=I:

call :GETDATE
Echo Transfering Pictures to:
Set FILEPATH="c:\
If %OS%==Windows_NT Set FILEPATH="%HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%\My Documents\
Echo ------ %FILEPATH%
c:
cd\
cd %FilePath%\My Pictures"
IF Not exist %YEAR%\ MD %YEAR%
CD %YEAR%
If not exist %TODAY%\ Md %TODAY%
cd %TODAY%
Start explorer %FILEPATH%My Pictures\%YEAR%\%TODAY%\"

dir %MyMS%\*.jpg /b /s > c:\pictures.txt
for /f %%a in (c:\pictures.txt) DO move %%a c:
if not exist c:index.htm copy "%HOMEDRIVE%%HOMEPATH%\My Documents\my pictures\index.htm" c:
for /f "delims=\ tokens=3,4,5" %%a in (c:\pictures.txt) DO Echo %%b >> index.htm
GOTO :VIDEOS

:GETDATE
REM Function to set TODAY equal to todays date in MM.DD.YYYY format
set GETDATE=%DATE%
set DOTDATE=%GETDATE:/=.%
set TODAY=%DOTDATE:~4,10%
Set YEAR=%TODAY:~6%
goto :EOF

:theend
cls
echo nothing to move
echo.
Goto :Done

:VIDEOS
Set Movies=%FILEPATH%\My Videos\"
cd %Movies%
IF Not exist %YEAR%\ MD %YEAR%
CD %YEAR%
Md %TODAY%
cd %today%
REM Also need to modify this line to use your correct memory stick location.
dir %MyMS%\*.mpg /b /s > c:\videos.txt
for /f %%a in (c:\videos.txt) DO move %%a c:
Echo Complete

:finished
explorer %FILEPATH%My Pictures\%YEAR%\%TODAY%\
notepad %FILEPATH%My Pictures\%YEAR%\%TODAY%\index.htm"

:Done


The attached VBScript is a work in progress. It needs a file set up on your removable media to read from. Then you can run the script to move files either direction. I use the same script to move MP3s onto my SD Ram chip.

Email Troubleshooting 101: Introduction

In the last 10 years, email has evolved from the uber-geeky tool into the corporate mainstream solution that no one can live without. At the base, Internet email is a 40+ year old technology that was originally designed to provide a reliable (not time sensitive) solution for communications between colleagues. As it has gained popularity corporations have started to rely on it for business critical communications with their customers and vendors. Nowadays, IT departments learn about their outages by how well the email solution is performing.

In the rest of this article, I plan on covering a few of the troubleshooting techniques I use to resolve Internet email issues and what may have caused them.

The Parts of an Email
Every email message delivered across the Internet has 2 basic parts, a header and data. The header consists of the delivery information (To, From) and routing information (what servers processed the message when). The data portion consists of the subject, message body and any attachments. (Note: Since Internet email cannot directly handle files, these attachments are [w:uuencoding|converted] to text and placed inline with the message body. This encoding process can add an additional 30% to the attachment size when completed.)

Message Delivery
The delivery of an email message is not obvious. A message may bounce around a dozen times (or more) before it is delivered to the intended recipient. This entire transaction can be found in the message headers.

Here is a great graphic from Wikipedia:

---

The message header would look something like:

1: Delivered-To: bob@b.org
2: Received: by 10.1.2.15 with SMTP id ;
Mon, 29 Jan 2007 13:55:16 -0800 (PST)
3: Return-Path:
4: Received: from a.org (a.org [123.45.67.89])
by b.org with ESMTP id ;
Mon, 29 Jan 2007 13:55:16 -0800 (PST)
5: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 16:56:18 -0500
6: Subject: Dear Bob,
7: Date: Mon, 29 Jan 2007 16:56:18 -0500
8: From: Alice
9: To: Bob


If you read the header from bottom to top, you see that Alice sent the message at 16:56 -5hrs (or EST) (line #7) and it was delivered at 13:55 -8hrs (or PST) (line #2), meaning it officially delivered before it was sent! (or the two email servers are using different time synchronization servers. You'll also notice that this header includes the IP Address of the servers it touched (line 2 & 4). This is helpful when trying to troubleshoot errors later on.

1. Open a command window (Start | Run | "CMD" click OK> and trying to PING each of these IP addresses. If you get a positive response, the servers are a least on the network.
2. Now try to TELNET to the server on port 25 and see if the SMTP server responds.
   
c:\Telnet 10.1.1.1 25

   You should get a positive response from the server. A failed response depends on the response.

Here are the possible SMTP Response codes that you may see. Please keep in mind that in general a 2XX indicates success, a 3XX indicates that the server has understood the request but requires further information to complete it, a 4XX error is temporary and a 5XX error is fatal. Float over the for my take on the error.

SMTP Code	SMTP / ESMTP Message Description
211	System status, or system help reply
214	Help message
220	Service ready
221	Service closing transmission channel
250	Requested mail action okay, completed
251	User not local; will forward to (other address)
354	Start mail input; end with .
421	Service not available, closing transmission channel
450	Requested mail action not taken: mailbox unavailable
451	Requested action aborted: local error in processing
452	Requested action not taken: insufficient system storage
500	Syntax error, command unrecognized
501	Syntax error in parameters or arguments
502	Command not implemented
503	Bad sequence of commands
504	Command parameter not implemented
550	Requested action not taken: mailbox unavailable
551	User not local; please try
552	Requested mail action aborted: exceeded storage allocation
553	Requested action not taken: mailbox name not allowed
554	Transaction failed

Exporting Exchange 2003 Mailbox Information

One of my peer departments is working on spamming the corporation. This internal spam, aka Corporate Newsletter, is to go out to everyone with a mailbox in the corporation. Unfortunately, a number of these people have abused their rights and their mailboxes are limited to receiving e-mail from only their managers.

In Exchange 5.5, you could create a simple CSV file and run the Admin tool to gather this information. Unfortunately, in Exchange 2003, mailbox settings are now integrated into Active Directory (AD). AD maintains all the mailbox information and settings, whereas the Exchange Admin tool is simply for server management (mail routing and global limits, etc.).

Then, how do you gather this information? I being the lazy, programmer-at-heart, that I am, wrote a VBScript to export the information. This worked great as I could set variables in the script to export the information I needed. This only worked for about a month, as I wanted pass this tool along to the internal employee for use (no way I was going to run this each time someone new was hired!!). That's why I put an HTA front-end on it!

To Use The Script

1. Download attached ZIP and decompress to your hard drive.
2. Modify the code to match your environment. Using Notepad without word-wrap turned on, will allow you to use CTRL+G to Go to specific line numbers.
   • Line 321 - modify LDAP query for your environment. We have seperate OU's for each affiliate office. The dropdown includes an option for each OU.

     All OUs
Users OU Only


   • Line 99 - Modify the Select Case statement to include each of the OU's.

     Select Case ClassesPulldown.Value
Case "LDAP://ou=users,dc=corp,dc=ent"
strExcelPath="Mailbox_Export_"&today&"_Users.xls"
Case else
strExcelPath="Mailbox_Export_"&today&"_All.xls"
End Select

3. Make sure you have Excel installed on the local computer.
4. Double-click HTA file and run. My export of the entire environment takes about 5-10 minutes for 3,500 mailboxes.

NOTE: We have set Custom Attribute 1 (aka ExtensionAttribute1) to a value (1, 2 or 3) for group or resource mailboxes. For example, the Postmaster mailbox has a value of 1,Conference rooms have a value of 2. Line 121 of the code is designed to filter on these values. Remove the line completely to get all mailboxes, or modify it for your environment.

Update August 16, 2007: I've modified the code to query the local AD for it's structure, so the above modifications are not necessary. After I made the changes, it started timing out when running the query, which shouldn't be related to the script changes. I suspect slowness in my AD.

Find Those Printers

When decommisioning an older server in the environment, it is essential that all the former services are moved off it. This includes the existing applications (including databases), file shares and printer shares. Unfortunately there is no easy way to capture who is mapped to each of the pritner shares. Outside simply monitoring printer traffic, or visiting each desktop, Windows (AFIK) has no method of tracking this.

Hence another script. This script queries the active computer for all printers, then exports the 'resource name' (port) and share name to a CSV in a specific location.


' Source: http://www.devguru.com/Technologies/wsh/quickref/wshnetwork_EnumPrinterC...
' Compiled by Eric Woodford

'change this path to match your current environment.
strLogPath = "\\servername\admin\printermappings"

Const forReading = 1
Const ForWriting = 2
Const ForAppending = 8

'get environment variable username
set shell = WScript.CreateObject( "WScript.Shell" )
username = shell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings("%USERNAME%")
Computername = shell.ExpandEnvironmentStrings("%COMPUTERNAME%")
set shell = nothing

auditfile = strLogPath &"\"&username&"_"&computername&".csv"

set fs = CreateObject("Scripting.FilesystemObject")
Fs.CreateTextFile(AuditFile)
set f = fs.OpenTextFile (AuditFile, ForWriting, True)

strText = "Resource name,Printer name" & vbcrlf
Set WshNetwork = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Network")
Set clPrinters = WshNetwork.EnumPrinterConnections
For i = 0 to clPrinters.Count -1
if i mod 2 <> 0 then
strtext = strtext & clPrinters.Item(i) & vbcrlf
else
strtext = strtext & clPrinters.Item(i) & ","
end if
Next

f.writeline strText
f.close

set fs=nothing


Google. The Plagiarism Detector Extrodinaire!

My wife is a seventh grade science teacher. One of the many difficulties she has to deal with, especially on large written projects is student plagiarism. The Internet is just too tempting for some students to avoid. Here they have searched and found the perfect article that answers all the questions that the project asks of them. Why not just print it out and turn it in??

Fortunately for seventh graders, school does not expell kids for plagiarism, they simply have to do the project over again or take a zero on the assignment. Unfortunately for the students, their plagiarism is typically very easy to spot. Not many 12 year olds can typically write at the same level of a college graduate (who would typically be publishing papers on scientists, or science topics). This makes locating sources of plagiarism very easy to locate.

How?
Take the typical class project, a report on a famous scientist and pull segments of phrases that the student used.
Take for example this segment:

Benjamin Franklin
Franklin was a prodigious inventor. Among his many creations were the lightning rod, the harmonica, the Franklin stove, bifocal glasses, and the flexible urinary catheter. Although Franklin never patented any of his own inventions, he was a supporter of the rights of inventors and authors and was responsible for inserting into the United States Constitution the provision for limited-term patents and copyrights. My source..

When reading a paragraph like this on a student's report, a red flag often goes up when they use phrases like Franklin was a prodigious inventor or uses words like "among" or "although". (If not plagiarisd, it is likely Mom or Dad wrote it.)

Using Google
In the search field of Google, I do an explicit search for the scientist's name.

"Benjamin Franklin"

13,400,000 hits Here

Now, I try by adding a phrase from their assignment.

"Benjamin Franklin" "Franklin was a prodigious inventor."

15 hits - 5 shown Here

From here, 5 sources are not that difficult to follow-up on. Typically, you can find the student's source within a few hits. Print out their source, staple it to the assignment, then mark it with a 0! OOOO What fun!!

Hate Commercials? Get a MP3 Player!

4 years ago I invested in my first MP3 player. I purchased online a 1GB micro-drive player from RIO. This device was perfect for what I needed. I could load up 100+ songs on the device and listen to commercial-free music where ever I went.

Early last year, that microdrive quit working. I guess dropping it on the ground a few times was a really bad idea. This was unfortunate, because I found several authors had started podcasting their books for free. Now I had a better understanding of what I wanted in a player.

For a replacement, I had these requirements:

1. Bookmark functionality - Listening to a 1 hour audio book, you don't want to have to fast-forward through 45 minutes to get to were you left off.
2. Flash memory - preferrably with a SD memory chip option. My workstation at home, and my corporate laptop both have a SD slot. Using SD, allows more flexibility and infinite expandability.
3. Inexpensive - I wanted to keep this under $100. Lose it? Buy a new one.
4. Flexibility - I had heard that the iPOD required you to download from iTunes (only). I wanted a device that would support downloading from any source.

Based on this criteria, I started shopping. I checked Target, Wal-Mart and Best Buy to see what was available. I found that seldom do MP3 manufacturers advertise 'bookmark' functionality on their devices (like the RCA Lyra). As this was key to my search, I went to searching on the web for brands sold locally.

Personally, I like using PriceGrabber.com for their search, and review options. I can filter down all my options in one search field and get the best reviewed products. Plus they often have links to sites with free shipping!! (Almost as good as buying it locally!).

Decision Time

I ended up purchasing another RIO device. I knew the RIO devices had the bookmark functionality, plus the Forge 256mb Sport, has a SD memory slot. I also loved the idea that it used standard AAA batteries, so I wouldn't need to purchase a separate charger for my car. I did purchase a bunch of rechargable AAA batteries and so far, the device has performed wonderfully. I download files to my laptop, use the internal SD slot to put them on the SD chip, then listen!

Hey Neighbor, Thanks for the Free Internet!

In recent months, I have noticed quite a few new local wireless hot-spots appeared in my neighborhood. These hots-spots are my neighbors (within 1000 feet of my house), who are using the out-of-the-box configuration and no security measures. This means anyone driving by my house can access the Internet while sitting in their car (war driving).

Using a free tool (Netstumbler), I can gather information about all my neighbor's wireless routers, including name and encryption settings.

Now that I know their router settings, I can become a member of their network. In addition to using their connection to the Internet for free, I could connect to shared network resources, like printers, and shared drives. Additionally, since they haven't enabled encryption on their router, they probably haven't changed the router's admin account password.

With little effort, I logon to their router, and check the DHCP table for a list of currently active devices, including computer names and IP addresses. I can try PINGing the IP address and see if it responds. If it responds, I can try mapping a drive to the default admin shares like C$ or browse the computer by simply typing in the IP address in the Windows START - RUN line, "\\192.168.1.100", and see what comes up. By default, Windows will have a "Shared Doc" folder available, but sometimes you will also see a printer listed here.

What can you do about it?

• Change your router's SSID. By broadcasting the default SSID assigned by the manufacturer, anyone can GOOGLE your manufacturer and determine the administrator logon and password for that model. Ouch! Now the hacker can lock you out of your own network.
• Implement WEP on your wireless devices - Configuring a WEP key is quick and easy. The hardest thing is often touching each wireless device and entering the WEP key. Just make sure your WEP key is unique and not a straight dictionary word. If your WEP key is Woodford, make sure it isn't printed on the front of your house. Of course, with as many open APs in the neighborhood a hacker will just drive next door and try there instead.
• Define MAC limits: A MAC address has nothing to do with the golden arches, but is the unique identifier assigned to each network device. The address is 12 digit hexidecimal containing part manufacturer identifier, one part pooled number. You can find your MAC address (or Physical Address) on Windows NT/2000 or XP machines by running IPConfig /All (see attached screenshot) in a command window. Input this information for each device into your router's configuration. By locking down your network to a specific set of MAC addresses, the hacker has to try to spoof the one of 281,474,976,710,656 (16^12) possible combinations.

Like security for your automobile, doing the basics of locking the doors and closing the windows is enough to deter most (wireless) thieves. They can always simply travel next door and find a much easier target. With the security now configured on your wireless router, you should be able to easily move your wireless devices between home, work and the coffee shop wireless networks with very little difficulties.

Logparser Script: Executive Mailbox Report Access Report

I was recently tasked with the process of setting up a fairly automated report to display each time one of our Executive Management Team's mailboxes had been accessed by internal users.

We had already turned on the log generation on the server according to the Microsoft tech article 867640. This generates a 1016 event in the server's application log each time a mailbox is accessed.

According to MS this includes:

• When an account logs on to a mailbox successfully.
• When a user tries to access another user’s mailbox folders, such as the Inbox, Calendar, Contacts, Journal, Tasks, or Notes folders.
• When an account logs on to a mailbox, Mailbox Resources is updated to show that the Exchange Service Account has logged on to the System Attendant mailbox.

In addition to malicious intent, each time someone books a meeting with another person, a backup is ran that uses a MAPI connection, or services like Blackberry Enterprise Server, accesses a mailbox they will also be annotated in the app logs. Plus, this report is destined for Sr. Management, so sending a dump of the Application logs was out of the question.

LogParser should already be your best friend. You can use this versatile tool to query any ASCII log file or server Event logs to pull out information.

Setup
The attached batch file, runs a logparser query against a mailbox server and generates a SUMMARY.CSV file.

1. Decompress ZIP file into a folder C:\SUMMARY
2. Modify SQL file to reflect your environment.
   • Change SMTP Addresses and Display to match those you wish to query
   • Change FROM Server to match the mailbox server containing these users
3. Run the BATCH file.

Details
We run this batch 6 times a day (using a Windows Scheduled task), creating a 1kb file for the 20 something Executives we monitor. After a month, I have almost 1mb of log files. The script is designed to pull information only from the last time it ran, so no overlap. This batch creates a new file with updates since the last run, then rebuilds the SUMMARY.CSV file.

The summary contains the display name of the executive, date of mailbox access, the domain account that accessed the mailbox, and how many times on that day.

I've expanded this by exporting all active mailboxes in the domain (see HTA coming soon) and import that into an Access database. I then created a 'linked table' connection to the CSV. Using a simple query to correlate the domain account, to a display name from Active Directory. (I only need to update the AD Export, when a account does not resolve correctly in the query.) Then I use Crystal Reports, pulling from the Access Query, to filter the information, generate summaries, etc.

Future
To expand upon this, we've considered porting the data collected to a SQL server (which Logparser handles nicely). Until then I have a simple query I can run anytime, and get relatively up-to-date access reports for these users.

My HTML Calendar Generating Script for Exchange 2003

In my office, we have over 60 different resources that can be booked online. These resources (including conference rooms, laptops and LCD projectors) can all be scheduled via Outlook and Microsoft Exchange, using Microsoft's latest Auto-Accept Agent. The main draw back is that you can't really tell who has what room for how long. With the previous version of Exchange (5.5) there where issues with users having permissions to the calendars. Outlook would corrupt the conference room calendar and cause the free/busy information to become corrupted.
I developed this script to query the resource calendars and not conflict with the free/busy info. This latest version uses WebDAV to query the calendar (similar to if the user is accessing via OWA!). I have scheduled the script to run every 15 minutes using a Windows Scheduled Task. To export a calendar with 270 items take around 5 seconds.
To configure the script:

1. Create your conference room mailboxes and configure for the AAA to run
2. Create a service account in your environment. It will need to have an Exchange Mailbox associated with it.
3. Via Outlook, grant the service account "REVIEWER" permissions to the conference room calendar. (Right-click | Properties | Permissions | Add...)
4. On your IIS server, create a new shared folder, and grant the Service Account - Full Control permissions to this folder.
5. Download and extract the ZIP file below to a server in your environment.
   • (11/21/2005) I've just uploaded an update to the script. This version includes a settings file, which eliminates the code modifcation listed below. Extract this file to the same folder, and modify the corresponding SETTINGS.TXT file.

   Note: Try to avoid putting system variables (? * and \) in the Display Name field.

6. Double-click on the VBS file and see if it successfully generates the HTML file in the UNC path. If not, verify permissions to the folder. Keep troubleshooting until the HTML file is successful generated.
7. Now that you have an HTML file, modify the INDEX.HTML file to point to this new resource.
   We've broken our rooms into physical areas.
   Copy the code below for each area, then modify the
a href= tags to point to each resource.
   
   Building A
   • Test mailbox
   • Home Page

   
   The JavaScript code will make it into a collapsible tree only showing resources they are looking for.

8. On the server where you placed the VBS file, create a scheduled task to run the VBScript. This scheduled task should run at regular intervals. I've scheduled them to run, Daily starting at 6AM, repeating every 15 minutes, for 15 hours.
9. Create a virtual web site, referring to the Index.HTML file, and advertise it to your employees.
10. You can hide the service account mailbox until you need to add a new conference room to the web page.

That's it! Fairly easy to create and maintain. In a future release I plan to have the script update the local Application Event Logs. This would allow products like NetIQ to monitor the script. Currently a log file is written locally.
Let me know what you think. I won't provide any support for your environment, but can help troubleshoot via e-mail.
6-20-2006: Finally uploaded revision including modification for day-light savings. This version reads the Day light settings from the local server, calculates the difference from DLS and modifies the time accordingly. This has been tested on Exchange 2003 successfully in Pacfic Time Zone.

Revision 3.3: If you downloaded the script, check out my article on the changes to Daylight Savings calculation here in the US. It may cause problems with entries booked on your calendar.

---

Someone recently reported to me that they could not access the ZIP files. Here is a dump of the "WebCalendarHTML.ZIP" file. Copy and paste this to a .VBS file on the server you wish to run the script from.

'==========================================================================
' NAME: WebCalendarHTML.VBS
' AUTHOR: Eric Woodford - mailto:Eric@EricWoodford.com
' DATE: 11/11/2005
'
' COMMENT: Generates a HTML file containing calendar entries for the next 7 months (no FREE type meetings).
' : Uses WebDAV to connect to mailbox and pull data.
' SOURCE: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/wss/wss...
' http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms879286.aspx
' SOURCE: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/zebratables/
'
' -------------------------------------------------------------------------
' Revisions to 3.2:
' Found issue with meetings occuring after Daylight Savings.
' Added 4 new functions to process DST information
' Modifying script to use WMI to pull DST information
' is server currently participating in DST (DSTEnabled)
' is server currently in DST mode (isDST)
' DST Offset in minutes (offsetmin)
' Adding code to calculate time based on difference to DST Date.
' Calculates DSTStartDate and DSTEndDate based on First Sunday / Last Sunday rule.
' -------------------------------------------------------------------------
' Revisions to 3.1:
' Modified script to read from a SETTINGS.TXT file
' File can contain blank lines & comments
' SETTINGS.TXT should contain:
' FSUSERNAME=User name to map a drive to web server
' FSPASSWORD=Password to map network drive
' MAPDRIVEPATH=Open drive letter to use for script.
' WEBUNCEPATH=UNC Path to network share (like \\server\sharename)
' MAILBOX=servername(tab)account(tab)password(tab)mailbox alias(tab)Mailbox Display name
' MAILBOX=servername(tab)account(tab)password(tab)mailbox alias 2(tab)Mailbox Display name 2
' -------------------------------------------------------------------------
' Revisions to 3.0:
' Converted from Exchange 5.5 Event Script to use CalDAV
' Modified script to utilize CSS for table back ground colors vs BGCOLOR code, encoded in script
' Modified script to utilize mouseover and css to highlight active row, and make it clickable. Clicking turns composes new message.
' -------------------------------------------------------------------------

Option Explicit

Main

Sub Main()
' This sub-routine processes the Settings.txt file and generates a calendar for each entry.
' It will fail out if it reaches a mailbox entry, before all the drive mapping entries are not defined.
Dim strUser, strDevice, strUncPath, strPassword
Dim objNetwork, objFile
Dim fso
Dim strReadLine
Dim arrLine,arrMailbox
Dim intMBXCount
Dim blnMapDrive, blnGotMailbox
Dim intLLevel

intMBXCount=0
blnMapDrive = False
Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set objNetwork = CreateObject("WScript.Network")
Set objFile = fso.OpenTextFile("settings.txt",1) ' for reading

'generate log file & place in current directory.
GenLogFile CStr(Now()) & " Starting Processing"

Do Until objFile.AtEndOfStream
if blnGotMailbox Then
genlogfile CStr(Now()) & "Error: Not enough parameters completed before first MAILBOX parameter." & vbcrlf & "Need to map Drive first."
genlogfile "SETTINGS.TXT should contain:"
genlogfile vbtab & "FSUSERNAME=User name to map a drive to web server"
genlogfile vbtab & "FSPASSWORD=Password to map network drive"
genlogfile vbtab & "MAPDRIVEPATH=Open drive letter to use for script."
genlogfile vbtab & "WEBUNCEPATH=UNC Path to network share (like \\server\sharename)"
genlogfile vbtab & "MAILBOX=servername(tab)account(tab)password(tab)mailbox alias(tab)Mailbox Display name"
Exit Do
End if

strReadLine = trim(objFile.ReadLine)
If (Left(strReadLine,1)<> "'") and (len(strReadLine)>0) then
arrLine = Split(strReadLine,"=")
Select Case ucase(arrLine(0))
Case "FSUSERNAME"
strUser = trim(arrLine(1))
Case "FSPASSWORD"
strPassword = trim(arrLine(1))
Case "MAPDRIVEPATH"
strDevice = trim(arrLine(1))
Case "WEBUNCPATH"
strUncPath=trim(arrLine(1))
Case "LOGGINGLEVEL"
intLLevel=cint(trim(arrLine(1))) '0 = none, 1=basic, 2=verbose
Case "MAILBOX"
arrMailbox=Split(arrLine(1),vbtab)
blnGotMailbox = true
End Select
if Not(blnMapDrive) then blnMapDrive = mapDrive(fso, objNetwork, strUser, strPassword, strDevice, strUncPath)
If blnMapDrive And blnGotMailbox Then
GenerateHTML arrMailbox(0), arrMailbox(1), arrMailbox(2), arrMailbox(3), arrMailbox(4), strDevice, intLLevel
blnGotMailbox = false
End if
End If
Loop
GenLogFile CStr(Now()) & " Completed Processing"
objNetwork.removenetworkdrive strDevice

'cleanup log files
Dim strFolder
Dim objFolder
Dim colfiles
Dim ext
'Dim objFile

strFolder = ".\"
Set objFolder = FSO.GetFolder(strFolder)
Set colFiles = objFolder.Files
For Each objFile In colFiles
ext = right(objfile.path,3)
If (DateDiff("d",objFile.DateLastModified,Now()) > 30) And (ext="log") Then
GenLogFile "Cleanup: Deleted "&objFile.path
fso.deletefile(objfile.path)
End If
Next

Set objfile = nothing
Set objNetwork = nothing
Set fso=Nothing
End Sub

Sub GetTimeOffSet(TimeZone, isDST, DSTEnabled, llevel)
' NOTES: This routine returns the time-zone off-set (in minutes) for the computer running the script.
' The information is pulled from the system using WMI instead of a registry pull.
'
' SOURCE: http://www.windowsitpro.com/Articles/Index.cfm?ArticleID=26030&DisplayTa...
Dim objOS
Dim curTZ
Dim CurDST
for each objOs in getobject("winmgmts:").InstancesOf("Win32_ComputerSystem")
curTZ = objOs.CurrentTimeZone
If llevel = 2 Then GenLogFile "Current Time Zone:" & curTZ
curDST = objOs.DayLightinEffect
If llevel = 2 Then GenLogFile "Currently DST:" & curDST
DSTEnabled = objOS.EnableDaylightSavingsTime
If llevel = 2 Then GenLogFile "Daylight Savings Enabled:" & DSTEnabled
If IsNull(DSTEnabled) Then DSTEnabled = False
isDST = CurDST
Next
'if curDST then
' curTZ = curTZ - 60
'end if
Set objOS = Nothing
TimeZone = CurTZ
End Sub

Function GetDSTEndDate(llevel)
' In the US, Daily Savings Ends at 2AM on the First Sunday in November.
' This function is to determine the next date.
Dim DSTYear
Dim DSTDate
DSTYear = CStr(Year(Now))
DSTDate = dateadd("d",(8-weekday(cdate("11/1/"&DSTYear))),cdate("11/1/"&DSTYear & " 02:00:00"))
If now() > DSTDate
DSTYear = CStr(Year(DateAdd("yyyy",1,Now)))
DSTDate = dateadd("d",(8-weekday(cdate("11/1/"&DSTYear))),cdate("11/1/"&DSTYear & " 02:00:00"))
End If
If llevel >0 Then GenLogFile "Daylight savings ends:" &DSTDate
GetDSTEndDate = DSTDate
End Function

Function GetDSTStartDate(llevel)
' In the US, Daily Savings starts at 2AM on the Second Sunday of March.
' This function is to determine the next date.
Dim DSTYear
Dim DSTDate
DSTYear = CStr(Year(Now))
DSTDate = dateAdd("d",7,dateadd("d",(8-weekday(cdate("3/1/"&DSTYear))),cdate("3/1/"&DSTYear & " 02:00:00")))
If now() > DSTDate
DSTYear = CStr(Year(DateAdd("yyyy",1,Now)))
DSTDate = dateAdd("d",7,dateadd("d",(8-weekday(cdate("3/1/"&DSTYear))),cdate("3/1/"&DSTYear & " 02:00:00")))
End if
If llevel >0 Then GenLogFile "Next Daylight savings is:" &DSTDate
GetDSTStartDate = DSTDate
End Function

Function AdjustForDST (isDST, DSTStart, DSTEnd, meetingTime, llevel )
' Adjusts for meetings that happen on other side of DST boundary than current time.
If Not(IsDST) And (meetingTime >= DSTStart) And (meetingTime < DSTEnd) Then
' Now() is before April, but dtmStart is before Last of October
If llevel >0 Then GenLogFile "Adjusting meeting forward 60 minutes"
meetingTime = DateAdd("n",60,meetingTime)
ElseIf IsDST And (meetingTime < DSTStart) and (meetingTime >= DSTEnd) Then
' Now is after April, but dtmStart is after End of October
If llevel >0 Then GenLogFile "Adjusting meeting backward 60 minutes"
meetingTime = DateAdd("n",-60,meetingTime)
Else
If llevel >0 Then GenLogFile "No adjustment made to meeting"
End If
AdjustForDST = meetingTime
End Function

Function mapDrive(fso, objNetwork, strUser,strPassword,strDevice,strUncPath)
' Maps network drive if has all four parameters - read from settings file.
mapDrive = false
If strUser = " Then Exit Function
If strpassword = " Then Exit Function
If strDevice = " Then Exit Function
If strUNCPath = " Then Exit Function

'remove mapping for drives that already exist.
If fso.DriveExists(strDevice) Then objNetwork.removenetworkdrive strDevice
Set objNetwork = CreateObject("WScript.Network")
objNetwork.MapNetworkDrive strDevice, strUncPath, false, strUser, strPassword
strPassword = vbEmpty
strUncPath = strDevice
If fso.DriveExists(strDevice) Then mapDrive=True
End Function

Sub GenerateHTML(mailboxserver, userAcct, userpswd, mailboxalias, MailboxDisplayname, strDevice, LLevel)
' Reads mailbox information and outputs to HTML webpage as defined by DisplayName and UNC path.
' Mailbox Server: NetBIOS name of the server
' UserAcct: AD account, with (at least) REVIEWER level permissions to the mailbox. "domain\account"
' UserPswd: Password for UserAcct
' MailboxAlias: Either the account name or the SMTP address for the resource calendar to be read.
' MailboxDisplayName: Display Name to put at top of generated Webpage.
' strDevice: Name of drive letter mapped for the web content

' Variables.
Dim strCalendarURI ' As String
Dim reqDoc ' As Msxml2.DOMDocument
Dim resDoc ' As Msxml2.DOMDocument
Dim pi ' As IXMLDOMProcessingInstruction
Dim strPassword ' As String
Dim strUserName ' As String
Dim searchrequestNode ' As IXMLDOMNode
Dim sqlNode ' As IXMLDOMNode
Dim strQuery ' As String
Dim queryNode ' As IXMLDOMText
Dim req ' As MSXML2.XMLHTTP
Dim objSubjectNodeList ' As IXMLDOMNodeList
Dim objStartTimeNodeList ' As IXMLDOMNodeList
Dim objEndTimeNodeList ' As IXMLDOMNodeList
Dim objBusyStatusNodeList ' As IXMLDOMNodeList
Dim objInstanceTypeNodeList ' As IXMLDOMNodeList
Dim objOrganizerNodeList ' As IXMLDOMNodeList
Dim objNode ' As IXMLDOMNodt
Dim i ' As Integer
Dim strInstanceType ' As String
Dim strDateNow ' As string
Dim strDateEnd
Dim StrDate ' used as temporary variable. Reads from NODE and processes into
dim myCalendar ' array for building side calendar
dim counter ' # of meetings found in calendar
dim WebHeader ' Contains Header to put in Item Count at end of building form
dim WebContent ' string container for web page content
dim bgcolor ' place holder for bgcolor tag in code
dim strOrganizer ' organizer for meeting string holder
dim pdm,pdd ' Values for previous month, day - transitition on colors
dim cdm, cdd, cdy ' current working day, month values
Dim edd, edm ' end date day value
Dim objFileSystem ' connect to fso to create file
dim objFile ' current file connection
dim colorstep ' container for current color value on table
dim dtmStart ' DTM container for Start Date
dim dtmEnd ' DTM container for End Date
dim strSubject ' Subject of current calender item
dim strStartTime, strEndTime ' formatted time string value for HTML output.
dim x ' variable for place holders..
dim dow ' day of week for when to start new week
dim workingdate ' start of week date for buidling small selection calendar, = Saturday of current week
dim monthstr ' 3 letter value for current month JAN, FEB, MAR, etc. small calendar
dim ConferenceRoomName ' conference room name for file output.
dim strDayOfWeek ' String Value for Day of Week.
Dim strDayOfWeekEnd ' String Value for Day of Week for End Date
Dim blnAllDayEvent ' int value for determining where in multiday event 0= not, 1=start, 2=middle/end
Dim strCurrentUser ' resource mailbox name.
Dim oshell ' connect to system for time-offset for daylight savings
Dim atb ' registry key containing value
Dim offsetmin ' time off-set in minutes from daylight savings.
Dim IsDST, DSTEnabled
Dim DSTStartDate
Dim DSTEndDate

'MsgBox TimeZoneOffSet & isdst

'const strUNCPath="\\sacwebsrv001\ConferenceRoomReservations\" ' Path to folder containing web pages. INDEX should point to reside here
Const strUncPath="z:\"

Dim ScriptVersion ' string variable to put value into HTML
ScriptVersion = "3.2 WebDAV"
'genlogfile "Starting "& Mailboxdisplayname&" : "& Now()
' Initialize variables.
strUserName = useracct
strPassword = userpswd
strCalendarURI = "http://"&mailboxserver&"/exchange/"&mailboxalias&"/calendar/"
strCurrentUser = mailboxdisplayname
ConferenceRoomName = RemoveSpaces(strCurrentUser, LLevel) ' remove wild-cards and spaces for filenames

GetTimeOffSet offsetMin, IsDST, DSTEnabled, LLevel
DSTStartDate = GetDSTStartDate(llevel)
DSTEndDate = GetDSTEndD