Cannot connect to email server or invalid server name.
Please verify the Outlook Web Access URL.
If the error persists contact yourdomain.com (your email provider).

The fields available for user input were:

• Email address:
• Password:
• Web access URL
• Username
• Mailbox Name

After some experimintation I discovered the working combination.

1. Web Access URL had to include the /exchange at the end, e.g: https://your.owa.com/exchange
2. Username had to be in the domain\username format
3. Mailbox name had to be the first part of the email address, i.e everything before the @ sign.

It was the mailbox name that took some guesswork. In a lot of organisations the 'mailbox name' would be the same as the username, but in our organisation we use a 6 digit number for usernames so the usual guessable combo was different. I wonder why this works though or why 'mailbox name' is even required. Seems a bit odd as it's not required by any other smartphone I've configured for ActiveSync.

Technorati Tags: Blackberry, Blackberry Curve

Here's the link. To install you will have to rename (or delete) vendor.xml in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Research in Motion\AppLoader before it will recognise the OS upgrade in Application Loader.

Benefits of upgrading are better themes, more useful standby screen, media manager, media player, Blackberry Maps, and more ...

I upgraded mine yesterday and lost the ability to reply to e-mails, the Send option was missing from the menu and all I could do was save a draft. Reactivating the device did not help, I had to wipe and reactivate, but now it's fine. According to users on blackberryforums.com it's meant to be faster than the 4.1 OS but it seems slower to me ... it's definitely much better overall though.

Technorati Tags: Blackberry, 4.2, 8700, BES

Blackberry 8800 and 8700

When I first installed it, BES 4.1 had initially annoyed me with it's move away from the classic MMC and redesigned interface (why did they disable right-clicks?) but using it to do a bulk device rollout was noticibly less administrative effort than on older BES versions. It was basically done in these steps:

• Bulk add the users from the GAL
• Create a new group (Blackberry group, not AD group)
• In the BES console add all of these users to the group

You can then apply changes to these users all at the same time by applying them to the group - such as:

• Setting activation password
• Applying IT Policy

I created a simple IT policy for these users to show user information on the 'device locked' screen and to lock the devices after 60 minutes of idle time. They were also required to set a password with a minimum of 4 digits on activation.

Final step was then to:

• Activate the devices

Instead of activating these devices myself, I wrote a quick guide to help them through the setup wizard and to let them know the activation password, and I sent it with the PDF version of the 8800 "Getting Started Guide". The only activation problems I had were a few devices that were not provisioned properly by Vodafone so would not activate - this meant a few calls to customer support (but I guess 5 out of 42 devices isn't that bad).

The devices themselves are pretty good, basically I would describe it as like a big Pearl with a few extra gimmicks thrown in - such as GPS and Blackberry Maps (which is a bit slow and US-centric). Size-wise they are actually a bit bigger than the 8700 but slightly slimmer, and the thumb board has been redesigned - the keys are now closer together and feel a bit more spongy rather than clicky. The screen is still good - nice and bright and fonts are easy to read. Overall though I think I do prefer my 8700 BB. It just feels the right size and I'm used to the spacing on the thumb board.

The biggest change on the 8800 is the move away from the jog wheel to the pearl-style trackball. It does work quite well but I do feel a little disappointed, the BB jog wheel is just iconic, and in some ways I think it's more precise - you definitely know when you have 'clicked' it from one position to the next. Anyway my users are happy with their brand new toys and happy users means less support calls!

Technorati Tags: Blackberry, 8800, 8700, Pearl, BES

Here are the other points of interest from the 4.1 feature list:

Instant Messaging
Windows Messenger Blackberry client

PIM/Organiser
Address Lookup Enhancements

Attachments
Attachment viewing pan and zoom enhancements
Enhanced PowerPoint viewing

Administration
Backup and restore of saved messages
SMS, Phone calls, and Messaging can be audited
Enterprise device authorisation - administrators can choose what sort of devices can connect to the server

The bad news is the upgrade from 4.0.x is not free. You have to source it from your mobile carrier, and the cheapest I have found is £650 from BT. It's going to be a case of the users deciding if these enhancements are worth the one-time cost.

Technorati Tags: Blackberry, BES

Aside from viruses, up until recently it was assumed that Blackberry devices were the safest possible thing you could attach to your network and use to read e-mail, but now some clever hackers have developed "Blackjacking". Have a look at the link below which shows how to compromise a company network using a Blackberry.

http://www.praetoriang.net/presentations/blackjack.html

Of course to do this, you need to covertly acquire a Blackberry device, and this method will only work until the Blackberry administrator kills the handheld from the server ... which I would hope would be fairly instant if they are on the ball.

It's an interesting read, and the moral of the story is clear - be alert and wipe your devices as soon as they are lost. If you are a Blackberry user, you should notify your admins immediately if you notice your device is missing. If it's wiped and then found by you again, it's a simple 5 minute task to restore it back to the same condition again.

Technorati Tags: Blackberry, Security, BES, Blackjacking

In order for deletions to synchronise to a Blackberry device, you have to use the delete key on it's own, or just move the items into the Deleted Items folder. This is because the BesAdmin account needs to keep track of your messages as you move them around your mailbox, and if you shift+delete it, BesAdmin doesn't know what happened to the item and it does not delete on the device. This is yet another reason why shift and delete is bad, and should be discouraged among Outlook users.

Technorati Tags: Blackberry, Deletions, Sync, Outlook

The blackberrydbbackup utility will produce a .bak file that is roughly the same size as your database, so if you don't clean these files up regularly you will notice your disk space diminish as your backup folder grows massive in size. To counter this I wanted to add a bit at the end of my backup script that would delete files older than a certain age. I found many, many long and complicated scripts that would do this, using if and for statements and masses of variables. I also found vbscripts pages long for doing this but I kept looking for something simple, because I recently looked into how to script this sort of thing using Unix commands (and blogged about it), and I was sure there would be a way using "command prompt" (DOS) commands that would be equally as short and elegant.

I discovered a new command for this called forfiles. Here's the syntax I used:

forfiles /m *.bak /D -6 /C “cmd /c del @file”

The /m switch specifies the search criteria. If you do not use /m it will default to *. The /D -6 is number of days, 6 days old in this instance. The /C switch will execute a command which you need to place inside double quotes. The @file variable in the example represents each file in the search results.

Here's the complete script:

e:
cd\backup

blackberrybackup.exe -b -o e:\backup\S86_backup.txt -y -w s05010086 -n s05010086 -m "BlackBerryServer"
blackberrydbbackup.exe -d BESMgmt -E -p -f e:\backup\

For /f "tokens=1-4 delims=/ " %%a in ('date /t') do SET mdate=%%c%%b%%a
rename E:\backup\S86_backup.txt e:\backup\%mdate%S86_backup.txt

echo Finished.

rem ** Cleanup old files **
forfiles /m *.bak /D -6 /C "cmd /c del @file"
forfiles /m *.txt /D -6 /C "cmd /c del @file"

Technorati Tags: Batch Files, Blackberry, Backups

• You don't need to muck around with cdo.dll anymore. The DLL and Patch that used to be required for cdo.dll is rolled into Windows Server 2003 SP1.
• You don't need to install MSDE anymore. It's done automatically by the BES setup program.
• Since MSDE is set up for you, all of the choices to do with the SQL database have been removed from the setup program.

The BES I have been configuring is actually running in a virtual environment, which is a concept new to me ... but the end result is exactly the same as if it was installed on a physical server.

My next task has been documenting the configuration. This involves creating an extremely detailed Word document (using a standard company template) detailing the configuration with diagrams and installation instructions, and a 2nd document which will be a single sheet containing all the basics you would need to know if you were left to look after a bunch of Blackberry users for a few weeks. Good documentation is incredibly valuable but it's such a time consuming process (and not my most favourite thing to do ....)

Blackberry Topology

Blackberry Server tip of the day

Blackberry log files have to be kept in check or they will slowly consume all of your free disk space. I would recommend turning logging off completely, and then just switching it on for troubleshooting if required.

Start > Programs > Blackberry Enterprise Server > Blackberry Server Configuration

On the Logging tab, change all instances of “Debug log daily file” to “No”.

Technorati Tags: Blackberry, BES, Administration