How to renew a self signed certificate in Exchange Server 2007

When a new Exchange Server 2007 role is installed on a computer the server automatically generates a self signed certificate to be used with services like transport (SMTP), POP, IIS (OWA and Exchange Web Services) and IMAP. This certificate expires right after the completion of one year from the date server was installed or the certificate was reassigned manually. To check the status of the certificate using Exchange Management Shell. Executing the cmdlet Get-ExchangeCertificate |FL displays all relevant information about all the certificates assigned, enabled and being used or not used by Exchange Services.

You may see more than one certificate listed on your exchange server(s) and that may be simply because you or someone else from your team have already tried working with certificates on the server.

If you see the above picture, you will notice that the certificate I have on my server is valid till 24th March 2010. NotAfter holds the value in mm/dd/yyyy h:mm:ss format. NotAfter – means this certificate will not be valid after the time stamp listed in this field. On the other hand the value NotBefore – means that this certificate will not be valid before the time stamp mentioned.

So once you cross the date listed in field NotAfter the certificate becomes invalid and indeed may open up doors to many other troubles like connectivity to web services, SMTP transport, POP and IMAP retrieval, etc. To renew the certificate you can simply run a cmdlet and get a new self signed certificate. But, this is just not as simple as simply running a cmdlet and get a new certificate, there is a procedure to do it. Check the following steps:

1. Run Get-ExchangeCertificate |FL – This will list details of all certificates that you have assigned to Exchange Services. Please understand, this cmdlet does not retrieve any information about any other certificate from local certificate store which is not used by Exchange. Once you get the output printed on the screen; note down the Thumbprint of certificate into a notepad.

2. Run Get-ExchangeCertificate –Thumbprint “58C846DEEA2865CA9E6DD4B42329A9AC994EBF63” | New-ExchangeCertificate . This renews the certificate. You will notice the moment you press enter on keyboard you may be prompted to confirm if you want to use the same certificate for SMTP service.

3. Check if the certificate is renewed. This can be simply examined by looking at the changes in thumbprint of the certificate after running the cmdlet mentioned in step 2. You can see the changed thumbprint in below picture.

4. Looking correctly to the above picture you will also notice that the certificate is not being used to secure IIS based services anymore though the NotAfter and NotBefore dates have changed. To enable this renewed certificate for IIS as well run Enable-ExchangeCertificate – Thumbprint “E0BB201793DC74D0F94F3275E6AA53BA75907565” –Services IIS

5. Verify all the services are working correctly after renewing and enabling the certificate.

6. Remove old certificate by running Remove-ExchangeCertificate –Thumbprint “58C846DEEA2865CA9E6DD4B42329A9AC994EBF63”

source: http://www.msexchangegeek.com/2009/04/24/how-to-renew-a-self-signed-certificate-in-exchange-server-2007/

Android newbies

Of all the new trends in IT, most of the mobile phone have different platforms ie symbian, android, mac and many more. On this occasion we will discuss the Android with Eclipse installation.

What are the things needed:-

1. Android SDK
2. Java SDK
3. Eclipse
4. ADT Plugin for Eclipse

simple huh :)

Anroid Installation Procedure for Windows with 32bit

1. Download Java SDK and install http://download.oracle.com/otn-pub/java/jdk/7/jdk-7-windows-i586.exe

2. Download Android-SDK depending on your OS, in my pc i downloaded http://dl.google.com/android/android-sdk_r12-windows.zip

3. Refer to this for SDK installation procedure http://developer.android.com/sdk/installing.html

4. Download and install now Eclipse http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/download.php?file=/technology/epp/downloads/release/indigo/R/eclipse-jee-indigo-win32.zip

5. After installing the Eclipse it is time to install the ADT plugin, following this procedure

Done the installation, now we are ready to create Android Applications

Thanks to my daugther for bringing up this topic :)

Arroyo faces plunder raps over 'misuse' of OWWA funds | ABS-CBN News | Latest Philippine Headlines, Breaking News, Video, Analysis, Features

Arroyo faces plunder raps over 'misuse' of OWWA funds | ABS-CBN News | Latest Philippine Headlines, Breaking News, Video, Analysis, Features

Arroyo ally says use of OWWA funds legal

MANILA, Philippines (1st UPDATE) - Plunder and malversation complaints were filed on Tuesday against former President and now Pampanga 2nd District Rep. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and several allies for alleged misuse of Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) funds.

In his complaint, former Solicitor General Frank Chavez accused Arroyo, former Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto Romulo, former Health Secretary Francisco Duque III and former OWWA Administrator Virgilio Angelo of "purposely and systematically orchestrated diversion and/or misuse of the OWWA fund, financing questionable acquisitions by several Philippine diplomatic posts in the Mid East, the humanitarian assistance to Iraq, and the reelection bid of CGMA [Congresswoman Gloria Macapagal Arroyo]." (Click here to read complaint-affidavit)

Your iPhone Is Tracking Your Every Move

Your iPhone Is Tracking Your Every Move

Researchers have discovered that the iPhone is keeping track of where you go and storing that information in a file that is stored - unencrypted and unprotected - on any machine with which you synchronize your phone. It is not clear why Apple is collecting this data.

Data scientists Alasdair Allan and Pete Warden came across the file - "consolidated.db" - while they were thinking about the potential trove of mobile data stored on a cellphone and thinking about ways to visualize this data. Allan and Warden will present their findings today at the Where 2.0 conference.

While it is not unusual for cellphones to track users' location, that information is typically kept behind a firewall and it requires a court order for others to be able to access it. This isn't the case with this particular file, raising serious questions about privacy and security

Manila Hongkong nationals hostage incident

My condolences to all victims of hostage taking in manila. For the past few days, it is really unfortunate that this happened in the philippines though it happening all over the world as it seems. So many lapses has been unfolded with the blow by blow media coverage. What did we learn from this? Why start pinpointing whose to blame? Why not instead restructure everything to comeout with a better solution next time. We have learned our lesson with this tragedy and its time for all of us work hand in hand for a proper rules and policy incase this occur again.

Why is't that media is kept on asking other personalities that deals with the hostage crisis? Did they even bother to ask themselves whether they are part of the problem? Leave the negotiation to negotiators, they were trained to do that. Are we not watching any movies that deals with this kind of scenario wherein media should know where to stop airing live telecast? Maybe criminals next time will bring small am/fm tuner just to listen where the exact location of the police that surrounds them, no need for television.

Don't even tell the President to be part of the hostage negotiation, your just encouraging criminals if you do. Leave it to the expert negotiators and everyone should cooperate and not be part of the problem as what happened here.

Don't point finger to other as more fingers were pointing towards you.

If we need to trained those guys then we should, if we need to restrain the media from covering the event then i guess its proper but please don't just pretend that media cannot have self-restrain by its own. We all have mistakes but we need to learn from it.

It's really a sad day for Philippines, amids frustration we have to move on and learned from this mistakes.