Recently in work Category

I've uploaded a new applescript that will automatically generate UWExchange accounts in Entourage 2004/8. A very kind colleague pointed out that the previous one didn't work- probably because after all my testing, I made some changes to the commenting fields and accidently commented out an important command. Yikes. Shows to go that you have to continue to test even when you make a miniscule change you're *positive* won't have an effect. Because it probably will...

The Department of Surgery is in the midst of adopting UW Exchange as our department-wide calendaring/email platform (moving away from a hybrid approach of an internal Exchange server and Now Up To Date calendaring). As part of the adoption process, we are rolling out Office 2007 and 2008 to all of our users. I'll use Apple Remote Desktop to remove Office 2004 and push out 2008 to my Mac users, but manually setting up Exchange accounts for all of them is not my idea of fun. 

So, I adapted an applescript¹ to automate the process. It basically leaves any existing account such as Deskmail alone, and creates an Exchange account with all the UW Exchange server and user account info pre-populated (sans password). My modified applescript² can be downloaded and used by other University of Washington faculty, staff and students (requires UWNetID). Supplied "as is" with no warranty expressed or implied- use at your own risk.

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1.  Original script by William M. Smith

2. File updated May 20, 2008

My original post about using the GAL with Entourage 2008 caught UWTech's attention, and Greg Shymko was kind enough to update me on the Exchange Team's changes to the netid authentication scheme that is used by the GAL.

UW Technology provides instructions for configuring Entourage 2004 to use the UW Exchange server. These instructions work for Entourage 2008 as well, but for both versions of Entourage the Global Address List (GAL) doesn't appear. Since this is a useful tool to have configured, I set about trying to get GAL to work.

My department has recently spent a good deal of $$$ for PGP Universal, which applies whole disk encryption to all of our windows-based laptops. We are currently in the middle of rolling it out to our users.

My favorite tech support email this week:

"The next thing is my iCal reminders don't work any more
And the web has lots of pages on this but none are helpful
But I continue to try

Tonight
When I installed Leopard it did not erase the old iCal stuff from Tiger
So I did it manually today

Today iCal reminders worked so maybe the old stuff was a problem...
Or not
Time will tell"