The King Came To Town

Last night I was able to scratch one item from my “Things To Do Before I Die” list.  I lived in Memphis for years and still consider it to be “home” even though I live and work in Little Rock.  During those years in Memphis, I had always hoped to see blues legend B.B. King perform at his blues club on historic Beale Street but the opportunity never presented itself.

I finally had the opportunity to see B.B. King in concert last night at the Riverfest Amphitheater in downtown Little Rock on the banks of the Arkansas River along with country music legend Willie Nelson.  King played all of his well-known favorites and proved that, even at 82 years of age (we share the same birthdate of September 16 although 31 years apart), he can still passionately deliver the blues with his distinctive voice and his guitar, Lucille.  His band, The B.B. King Blues Band, was outstanding as well.

While King sang The Thrill Is Gone to close out his set, Willie joined him on stage and the two performed Night Life before King left the stage.  After a brief break while the crews shuffled equipment onstage, Willie and his band returned.  Like King, Willie played all of his hits as well to the enjoyment of the packed amphitheater crowd.

Willie was good…but B.B. King was A-W-E-S-O-M-E!  Should you get the opportunity to see B.B. King in concert, by all means buy a ticket!  It will be money well spent!

Exchange Management Pack: Custom URLs for OWA, OMA, and EAS

The Exchange Management Pack used by Operations Manager 2007 automatically determines the URL used to monitor the front-end Exchange services. It does this by using a combination of the localhost/network card IP address and the virtual server and virtual directory information in the IIS metabase.  This URL is the local monitoring URL because the logon request is submitted to the local front-end server, where the logon request is generated.

You can also supply a custom URL to monitor the public address that is used by Web and mobile devices.  To enable monitoring of a custom URL, you must edit the registry on each server where the monitoring is to be enabled.

Configuring a Custom URL for Outlook Web Access (OWA)

To edit the registry, from the Windows Desktop, select Start > Run and type regedit in the textbox.  Click the OK button to open the registry editor.  Locate the \\HKLM\Software\Exchange MOM\FEMonitoring\<FE servername>\ key and create a registry value of type string named CustomURLs.  The custom URL(s) can be entered as a comma-delimited list in this value as follows:

• https://www.mydomain.com/exchange, https://www.mydomain.com/mail

Also, you must set the “CustomURL” override on the Outlook Web Access Logon Monitor to True, which causes the monitor to use the value specified in the new registry key rather than the default values.

Configuring a Custom URL for Outlook Mobile Access (OMA)

Navigate to the same registry key listed above for configuring a custom URL for Outlook Web Access (OWA).  Create a registry value of type string named CustomOmaUrls.  The custom URL(s) can be entered as a comma-delimited list in this value as follows:

• https://www.mydomain.com/oma, https://www.mydomain.com/mobile

Also, you must set the “CustomURL” override on the Outlook Mobile Access Monitor to True, which causes the monitor to use the value specified in the new registry key rather than the default values.

Configuring a Custom URL for Exchange ActiveSync

Navigate to the same registry key listed above for configuring a custom URL for Outlook Web Access (OWA).  Create a registry value of type string named CustomEasUrls.  Enter the custom URL in this value as follows:

• https://www.mydomain.com/Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync

Also, you must set the “CustomURL” override on the Exchange Active Sync Monitor to True, which causes the monitor to use the value specified in the new registry key rather than the default values.

This information reproduced from Microsoft TechNet and placed here for my convenience.