Constant 50% CPU usage on iPhone running iOS8

I don't usually publish break/fix stuff here, but I couldn't find ANYTHING on the Internet that helped me solve this one, and I think I've nailed it.  So here goes.

I have an iPhone 6 running iOS 8.x, I am on the Rogers network in Canada.  I was travelling in the US on the AT&T network, and got a carrier update which I mistakenly applied (although all my support calls indicated that this shouldn't affect anything).  Upon returning to Canada, I discovered my CPU usage was bouncing between 50-51% as a flat bar (Discovered using SysStatLite).  Anyone who knows anything about CPU graphs and computers know that when a computer is idle, the CPU bounces between 2-8%, but when it's doing stuff, the CPU graph bounces randomly all over the place, unless the CPU is pegged at 100% doing some processing (photo editing, video editing, video gaming, etc)

Idle CPU Example

As you can imagine, the two biggest battery eaters on a mobile device is the CPU and Screen, followed closely by network).  So with my CPU hovering at 50%, my battery life was cut in half.  an hour drive home would eat 1/4 of my battery, so that's like 4-5 hours of battery life in my phone, not acceptable!

So let's get into the list of things I tried without getting intrusive:

• Rebooting
• Closing all open applications (double-tap home screen and close apps)
• Turning off all background apps
• Turning off all location services
• Going into Airplane mode
• Restoring from iCloud

Whoa! Going into Airplane mode killed the CPU instantly, that's a good sign.  In fact, turning airplane mode back off, then left my CPU normal... but only for 30-60 minutes, then back to 50%!

50% CPU, airplane mode to 8%, off airplane mode spike and back to 8%

As you can probably guess, I don't just feel my phone in my pocket getting warm and immediately open it, turn on airplane mode, and then turn it off and stick it back in my pocket, so I would often pull it out of my pocket and think "damn, my phone is hot", and I have 30% battery left.

Time to call support

I called Apple.  Apple support is A-Mazing if you have never called it.  We did a number of things

• Back-up the phone and Restore it from iCloud (and also from iTunes), again
• Factory reset the phone (no issues, but no data)
• Set up the phone from scratch again (without using a backup, by the way this is extremely intrusive and painful!)

All these problems still persisted.  Apple replaced my phone.

THE PROBLEM STILL EXISTED!!

I went to Rogers support, they replaced my SIM, so now I have a new phone, new data, and new SIM and the problem still existed.  Clearly since this isn't wide-spread on the Internet it was something I was doing.  I started researching everything that I could find (apps would crash as seen in SysStatLite) and I would research them

• CommCenter crashed -- disabled MMS
• Searchd crashed -- found a baller iPhone5 wall paper.
• iCloud backup could cause the CPU usage

Still nothing seemed to drop the CPU instantly, until I came across this community article.
Answer #3 on this page indicated that if you sync'd your phone against an Exchange server, contacts would have issues now and then.

This made something click for me.  As a former Microsoft employee, I'm pretty knowledgable on Exchange (after my years working on Small Business Server).  I knew that Outlook.com supported Exchange Active Sync which is a fantastic protocol for syncing email, usually reserved for full Exchange (Office365).  Instead of setting up my iPhone using the default Outlook.com settings, I chose to set up Outlook.com as an exchange server.  I deleted my personal email account and re-set it up using the prescribed method for syncing Outlook.com addresses on iPhone.  One of the benefits of EAS is you never have to reconfigure it, even if an admin moves something around.  So I figure maybe an admin would move my mailbox somewhere, and change the config, but my hard-coded config on the phone wouldn't adapt to this.


So far the CPU hasn't spiked since! it's been idle and my battery life rocks again!

So, the moral of the story is (aka, TL;DR)

(1) Don't be too smart for these devices

(2) Use the most tested methods when using both Apple and Microsoft software/hardware for the best experience.

Hope this helps a few more people save the hours it took me to figure this one out.

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Help! I have a Virus!

I get this question a lot.  I wanted to write something up on how you can self heal your Windows 8 PC (although most of this also works for Windows 7), or at least get you started in the right direction. Let’s dive right into figure out what’s going on.  Let’s quickly talk about what a “virus” is:

• A virus is actually software that is harmful to you or others running on your computer.  Something that erases or corrupts files or potentially participates in international denial of service attacks at an attackers whim.  These are terrible, and programs like Windows Defender, built right into Windows, if updated, will protect you against any of these.
• Spyware is software that tends to steal from you, capture credit card information, your password etc, also bad, and again Windows Defender will capture most of these, but not all
• Bloatware is software that that is trying to help you do something, but something you probably don’t need.  There are two types of Bloatware
• Non signature PCs come with extra software your computer provider installs in hopes to make extra money from software vendors who want to get their software in front of users, so they pay the computer provider. (as a side note this is why I always format and re-install these computers, if you have the technical know how)
• Software you install.  Yes, getting emoji’s at the bottom of your email, or the “music downloading app”, the list goes on.  All the little programs YOU install on your computer, some of them are bloatware, and some of them come with bloatware.

So let’s get to fixin’ that “virus”.

Step 1 – Let’s make sure it’s not a known virus

First, let’s get Windows Defender up to date, and scanning. 

1. Hit the start button on your keyboard, or swipe out the charm menu and hit start.
2. just start typing “Defender” and you’ll see the “Windows Defender” appear.  Tap or Click on it to drop into the desktop and you’ll see this window:

 

This is what a healthy PC looks like.  If your PC is unhealthy, it’ll tell you on screen what you should do.  Which is most likely download the most recent updates, and then scan your PC.  It’ll quarantine/delete any files it detects that are a virus.  Easy Huh?  You don’t need any other Anti-virus program, as Windows Defender does it all.  If someone says you need something like McAfee, Symantec, or a paid Antivirus solution, you don’t.  Those applications provide additional security, but the base prevention of viruses is included with Windows 8.

IMPORTANT WINDOWS 7 NOTE: if you’re on Windows 7, then Windows Defender doesn’t do anti-virus, you’ll need to get Microsoft Security Essentials, which is a free download. Same comment on the other antivirus solutions, they aren’t necessary and cost money for features you most likely won’t use.

Step 2 – What the heck is running on that PC of yours?

Computers only have so much memory, probably barely any if you bought your computer for under $1000, and you want to keep the programs running down to the ones you need not the ones that have just decided you need them.  While there is probably a number of things running on your computer at this very moment, what you want to prevent is things from starting that you won’t use.  Here is how

1. Let’s crack open the Task Manager, the fast keys are CTRL+SHIFT+ESC, or you can right-click on the task bar in the desktop and choose Task Manager.
2. Flip over to the Startup tab.  Here is what you see:

As you can see, I have a pretty short list.  I’ve disabled what I don’t use EVERY time I reboot my computer.  Chrome, my browser does a tone of things for me, so I allow it to load in the background, I obviously want sound, so I leave my Realtek device enabled.  I print, so I leave the HP one enabled, but I use iTunes or my life experience camera, or send to one note, or Spotify only sometimes, or not at all.  I want to load those manually if I need them, so they are disabled.  Disabling things that are of high startup impact will make your computer boot faster.

Next, let’s trim some fat.  Out with the programs you don’t need!

1. Hit the Start page up again with the start key, or the swipe for the charms, and then the start button
2. On the start page, type in the word control, and you’ll see the Control Panel come up
3. Launch that by taping or clicking on it, and you’ll end up in the Control Panel on the desktop
4. Under Programs, click the Uninstall a program link, it should look like this:

 

This is where the fun begins, you want to go through program by program, and uninstall the ones you don’t use using the highlighted Un-install button.  You’ll find that some have unnecessarily hard un-install programs, these are probably the bloatware programs you’re loathing.  I often do a Google Search for “How to Uninstall %insert program name%” and then see what the internet says.  Ultimately you want to un-install anything that you’re not using. After this step you’ll likely have to reboot your computer, when it comes up, it’ll probably already be running faster.

This next step is not for the layman.  In fact, you can SERIOUSLY mess up your computer in this step, so skip it if you don’t feel comfortable, or better yet, take a screenshot and send it to someone you trust (yes family, you can send it to me).

Let’s get into the registry

1. On the start menu type in RegEdit or press WIN+R and type Regedit.
2. Agree to the access prompt allowing the app to open
3. we’re going to need to navigate to two places here to see what’s else is loading
• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

You’ll want to take a screenshot of each of these locations and send them to your trusted advisor.  Here is what the second one looks like for me:

You will see a similar list (probably more technical) to the Task Manager above.  If you do wish to edit this.  You delete the ones you don’t want BUT BUT BUT!!!! make sure you export the key first as a backup, and know which ones you’re deleting and why.  The above are actually my audio drivers, so I want them to run, but they look uber geeky right?  So be careful here!

Step 3 – Browser Extensions

Many of the “Help I have a Virus!” emails I get always have screenshots of browsers, and said browser is saying stuff like “you’re internet is slow, you have a virus, run this program!”.  Please please please don’t run this program.  Anything windows *should* run, is already running for you.  My friends at Microsoft have done this for you. They don’t tell you what you should run, it’s just running!  So don’t run anything, or pay any money to run something.  A browser should open take you to your home page, and let you get on the Internet.  The browser isn’t going to tell you about the health of your computer, or want to collect money from you.  Let’s look at two browsers

Chrome

Let’s find the browser extensions and remove what we don’t need, unless you just installed it, then there aren’t any to worry about.

1. Open Chrome and click on the three lines in the top right hand corner of the window
2. click on Settings, then on the left hand side, click on Extensions.

You’re presented with a list of all the extensions.  Go through one by one and hit the trashcan to delete any you don’t use.  If you aren’t sure what one does, uncheck the Enable, and then close Chrome and open it and see if there are any differences. If there aren’t, chances are you want to delete that one anyways, so go back and delete it.

Internet Explorer

Let’s get killin’ extensions

1. Click on the gear icon in the upper right of the browser window (under the “X” to close IE)
2. Click on Manage Add-ons and you’ll see this:

Now go through all the Toolbars and Extensions, and disable the ones you don’t use.  Also check out the Accelerators and remove the ones you don’t use as well.

When you’re done these, close the browser and re-open it. 

Step 4 – Getting more insight

Last but not least, I wanted to tell you a tool that gives you more insight on the stability/reliability of your computer.  It tells you when you did things, like install apps that cause problems.  It’s the Reliability Monitor.  Let’s open it up

1. Get to the start page (press the start key, or use the start button on the charm fly-out)
2. Type in the word Reliability, and select the Reliability Monitor.   You’ll end up back in the desktop seeing this page:

You can click on each yellow warning triangle, or blue informational icon and see what happened on that day. The blue bar (across the very top of the graph at #10 for me) is your reliability monitor.  That bar may not be at the top for you, but you can follow that bar back in time to see when it dropped from a 10/10 score to a lower one, and you can see the event that took place.  My guess it’s the one day that you decided to install something because you were in a rush, and you picked a bad program.  It gives you more insight to what’s going on with your computer, and what the history was and why things are probably broken.

Anyways, if you’re a family member, and ask me to connect into your computer to fix your virus. These are the steps that I’m going to follow, so now you can too!

On a last note, I’m always told “oh, aren’t you going to defrag my hard drive?”.  Defragging is so 2008… with Windows 8 this happens automatically for you, but you can validate it’s enabled simply by

1. Going to the start page
2. Typing in defrag, and selecting the Defragment and Optimize your drives. 

Just click the Optimize button, or see when it was last run.  Note that the older “hard drives” need defragmenting, and the newer and faster SSDs need trimming.  Totally different technology, but Windows will handle both for you.

Good luck with your “virus”… and stop installing programs that you don’t need with bloatware!

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Efficiently Using Multiple Browsers (with a single key press)

Maybe I’m weird, or maybe my job has more requirements than others, but I use Google Chrome, and Microsoft Internet Explorer interchangeably.  I know web developers have this problem, perhaps they’ve already worked out a work flow, but I wasn’t able to find one.  Ultimately for things that are work related, I want to open those in Internet Explorer, and personal browsing, I want to use Google Chrome.  While we all have our reasons for using one browser over another (I have mine), if you want to use both, there was no really good way…

So I had a friend teach me how to write my own browser…

Ok, ok, I didn’t technically write my own browser, that would take a lot of work, but what I did do is build a Browser Proxy.  The Browser Proxy is the default Browser on my PC, and all it does, is validate if a key is pressed (“Left Shift” to be exact) and either launch IE or Chrome based on that key.  This means for me now, “Click” is to open in IE and “Shift+Click” is to open in Chrome!

Here’s how I did it
First, you need AutoHotKey, which I’ve written about before.  You can use it have an always-on scripting engine running to help you control Windows, or to create scripts and turn them in executable, which is what we’re going to do here.  So get that installed on your PC.
Second, Choose your actual “Default Browser” in Windows.  I made Internet Explorer default because people send me work related links in Lync, Email, and they are scattered all through documents and such, so it makes sense to make IE default for me.  This means that without the SHIFT key down, IE will be used.
Third, we need to create what I call “Browser Proxy” executable, This is going to be a bit more complicated, to get you started, My friend and I have created the browser .ahk file (AutoHotKey script) and installer .reg file (think of this as associations for your application so Windows can find it).  Download the package here, (virus scan it, because you should virus scan any weird .zip file you download from the Internet), and then unzip it.  You’ll find 3 files, one of which is a readme and you can figure that out.
Crack open the BrowserProxy.ahk in Notepad or your favorite editor, it looks like this:

GetKeyState,State,LShift IfEqual,State,U {     ; Shift Key up -- launch IE     Run,"C:\Program Files (x86)\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe" -nohome "%1%" } Else {     ; Shift Key down -- launch Chrome     Run,"C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" "%1%" }

Validate the paths for both Internet Explorer and Chrome. Change the paths as appropriate.  You can also chose to use a different key, like if you wanted the Left CONTROL button to be the key you use, change the “LShift” in bold above to “LControl”.  In fact you can choose whatever key you want (here is the list).
Once you’ve got the script validated, save it and then since you now have AutoHotKey installed, you right click on the script and choose Compile Script.

This produces a BrowserProxy.exe in the same directory. I copied this to "C:\Program Files (x86)\BrowserProxy\BrowserProxy.exe" (and agreed to the UAC prompt). You can put this anywhere, but more updates will be required in the .reg file which we’re going to use next.
Now we need to import the BrowserProxy.reg file into your system registry.  Please do feel free to open it in Notepad before importing it (you should always be aware of what you’re putting into your registry), but it does 3 important things

1. Define the BrowserProxy.exe application under the SOFTWARE section of the registry
2. Registers that application
3. Sets up the root classes that the application can handle

If you changed the path of where you put BrowserProxy.exe, you’ll need to update that as well, and mind that you keep double \\ when you put the path in.
Now that your own “Browser” is ready, you need to make it default.  This is how I did it on Windows 8.1

1. Open the Desktop Control panel (Win+R, type “control”, and click OK)
2. Click on Programs
3. select under Default Programs click on Make a file type always open a specific program.
4. In this dialog, we need to change the default to “Browser Proxy” for “.htm”, “.html”, “.shtml”, “.xht”, “.xhtml”, “FTP”, “HTTP” and “HTTPS”.  Select the item in the list and click on Change program… then select BrowserProxy.exe

Once you have configured all 8 defaults, you should be able to immediately start using a CLICK to open in IE and SHIFT+CLICK to open in Chrome!!
Note: Some applications may cache the default browser, in which case they would need to be restarted (My offender: Outlook).  Now you can use two browsers easily without having to do the usual tricks of copying URLs between browser windows, or manually setting default browsers constantly.
Final note: If you are looking for a way to launch Firefox, try changing the launch EXE in the .ahk script to:

{     ; Shift Key down -- launch FireFox     Run,"C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -requestPending -osint -url "%1%" }

For Reference here is the contents of the .reg file:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\StartMenuInternet\BrowserProxy.EXE] @="BrowserProxy" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\StartMenuInternet\BrowserProxy.EXE\Capabilities] "ApplicationDescription"="Browser Proxy Application, enables you to switch between IE or Chrome simply by pressing SHIFT when you click" "ApplicationName"="BrowserProxy" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\StartMenuInternet\BrowserProxy.EXE\Capabilities\FileAssociations] ".htm"="BrowserProxyHTML" ".html"="BrowserProxyHTML" ".shtml"="BrowserProxyHTML" ".xht"="BrowserProxyHTML" ".xhtml"="BrowserProxyHTML" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\StartMenuInternet\BrowserProxy.EXE\Capabilities\StartMenu] "StartMenuInternet"="BrowserProxy.EXE" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\StartMenuInternet\BrowserProxy.EXE\Capabilities\URLAssociations] "ftp"="BrowserProxyHTML" "http"="BrowserProxyHTML" "https"="BrowserProxyHTML" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\StartMenuInternet\BrowserProxy.EXE\DefaultIcon] @="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\BrowserProxy\\BrowserProxy.exe,0" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\StartMenuInternet\BrowserProxy.EXE\shell] [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\StartMenuInternet\BrowserProxy.EXE\shell\open] [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Clients\StartMenuInternet\BrowserProxy.EXE\shell\open\command] @="\"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\BrowserProxy\\BrowserProxy.exe\"" [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\RegisteredApplications] "BrowserProxy"="Software\\Clients\\StartMenuInternet\\BrowserProxy.EXE\\Capabilities" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\BrowserProxyHTML] @="Browser Proxy" "FriendlyTypeName"="Browser Proxy" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\BrowserProxyHTML\DefaultIcon] @="\"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\BrowserProxy\\BrowserProxy.exe\",0" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\BrowserProxyHTML\shell] [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\BrowserProxyHTML\shell\open] [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\BrowserProxyHTML\shell\open\command] @="\"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\BrowserProxy\\BrowserProxy.exe\" \"%1\""

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Backing up your Contacts from the Cloud

I can’t stress how important backing up is, I even have a special tag just for tips and tricks with backup, across various technology. 

So you might think, well, my contacts are *in* the cloud, so they are safe right?  Wrong!  If you don’t take backups into your own hands, you can have issues down the road, even with all the resiliency built into these Cloud services, you can loose data, here are just a few ways:

• The Delete key could get stuck on your wireless keyboard and end up deleting a majority of your contacts in an instant, which then syncs to your service and then instantly to all your devices (this happens in my inbox all the time when my keyboard battery is low). (don’t have this? learn how to set it up here)
• You could get hacked, be that @Matt or @N style, or simply by a script kiddy (you’ve enabled 2-factor authentication for your account already right? (Outlook.com, GMail.com)
• You could get a virus that deletes, corrupts or worse (encrypts) your data so you can’t access it
• You could cause yourself to get locked out of your account, maybe because you broke the Terms of Use?
• The cloud service can make a mistake and delete your files (although it’s likely they can get it back, this is hours of support calls)

So, it’s in your best interest to do your own backup, and manage your data on your own, even in a cloud service.  I keep my Contacts in the cloud and I backup periodically (manually, but all the same, it’s periodically).  What would be great if these services did this monthly and emailed it to you…. a request in progress!

This is how I do it with Outlook.com

• Browse on over to https://people.live.com and log in
• On the title bar at the top, choose Manage and click on Export for use with Outlook.com and other services.
• This will prompt you to download (or automatically download) a file called OutlookContacts.csv. which is a coma separated values file that contains pretty much every important field that is in your contacts.  This is what you have to save in a safe place.

If you loose your contacts for whatever reason, you can use this file to work on importing them into another app or the same service but different account, etc.

This is how I do it with GMail.com

• Browse on over to https://www.google.com/contacts/ and log in
• On the More drop down, select Export… to start the process
• Choose the best format that you want to export in.  I think that Outlook CSV is the most widely used format, but you may wish to export in all formats, or specific formats to meet your needs.
• This will prompt you to download a contacts.csv (or automatically download it), and this is the file you want to keep safe. 

There are multiple ways to import these files if your data is lost… more on that to come, but at least you doing this if only once a year, will save you a lot of hassle if you run into trouble.

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How to fix Outlook's Jump Lists

I'm a big fan of the Jump Lists in Windows 7/Windows 8.  I use them a lot to get to key documents and most importantly start a new mail message or new calendar request with Outlook 2013

It's super easy to just right-click, and then select New E-mail Message, and you're off to the races, no need to make Outlook the foreground or anything. 

However, twice now I've found this list corrupted, I right click and there is just the bottom three, and the "task" available is a "mailto:a_lot_of_garbage", and it does nothing.  Productivity drops instantly.  

I did however managed to find this support article on tasks missing once Outlook is pinned to the task bar.  It provides two work arounds, both times the first one worked.  Instead of the backup, I just renamed the "LastUILanguage" key and re-opened Outlook. 

Method 1: Delete the LastUILanguage registry value

To export and delete the LastUILanguage registry value, follow these steps:

1. Unpin the Outlook 2013 icon.
2. Exit Outlook 2013.
3. Use Regedit to export the following registry key:
   
   
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook
4. After you export the Outlook registry key, delete the LastUILanguage registry value.
5. Start Outlook 2013, and then re-pin the icon.

Method 2: Export and delete the Setup registry key

If method 1 does not resolve the issue, export and delete the Setup registry key. To do this, follow these steps:

1. Unpin the Outlook 2013 icon.
2. Exit Outlook 2013.
3. Use Regedit to export and then delete the following registry key:
   
   
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook\Setup
4. Start Outlook 2013, and then re-pin the icon.

Hopefully this helps you....

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Removing the Required PIN code on Windows Surface

My corporate E-Mail requires that any device I sync it to, enable a 4-digit PIN to unlock the device, at a minimum.  I can make this as complex as I like, but I must at least have a 4-digit PIN.  I'm fine with this, I think it's a good practice to have a PIN on your phone or tablet, so if it's lost, the thief or casual finder can't access all the data on it.  Even more so all those corporate secrets that I have! (har har! Like I'm trusted with corporate secrets!)

What I'm not fine with, is once you decide that you no longer want your work account on a device, you can't get rid of the requirement for the PIN, like how I'm re-purposing an old SurfaceRT (yes, I pre-ordered a Surface2!) to be a digital music player / weather station / morning news station / upstairs Skype phone, in the bedroom, I don't have *anything* on it that would need a PIN, and the likely hood of the tablet leaving the bedroom aside from when I move houses, is extremely small.

Searching around turned up nothing, asking around (especially @Microsoft) usually turns up something.  And this time it turned up this super handy How do I Turn Off the AutoLock in Windows 8 article.  And here I was searching around in gpedit.msc or regedit, and it's right there in the Control Panel UI!

Here's how to do it:

• Open up the Control Panel (either Win+X or Win+R then type "Control", enter)
• Click on the title User Accounts and Family Safety
• Click on the title User Accounts
• Click on the Reset Security Policy 
  
• Click on the Reset Policies Button 
  

That's all there is to it. Now you can go into PC Settings and set the password policy to never required!  This also allows you to change the default screensaver time out as well.

There you have it.  It took me a lot of effort to find that, so I'm sharing it here (so I don't forget as well).  And now I don't have to factory reset my SurfaceRT! w00t!

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How to Change Your Email Address and Service Gracefully

So you got the Internet, and your Internet Service Provider (ISP) sold you on 5 free email addresses, and you thought: "Free is good!". Then you read my post from a few days ago about how to use email, calendar and contacts across multiple devices, and realized that Free is good, but you need to choose the right free.
So now you want to migrate your email address to an Outlook.com or G-Mail account. Allowing you keep not only your email, but your calendar and contacts as well in "the cloud".
This is not only an invasive change for you, but it's also for your friends, and this post is designed to logically tell you how to gracefully switch to a new e-mail.

1. Create your account on your new provider.  I would recommend Outlook.com, because, well I'm biased and I really like it.  You'll want to spend some time to get a username you're happy with.  On Outlook.com you can create aliases later on if you don't like your log in, for specific purposes.  So you can create your account as mulletman@outlook.com, but then create an alias of firstname.lastname@outlook.com for your resume, and have both delivered to your inbox.
2. Once you're happy with your new email address, you can log into it and you'll have no email.  What I did was export all of my contacts as a "CSV" file (Comma Seperated Values) from whatever email program I was using on my computer, then just went to the People tab, and chose Manage, then Add People  You can then choose to Import from file, and import that same CSV file.  (you can also import from Google, Linked In, Sina Weibo, Facebook).  Basically I get my contacts all squared away first (while still checking my old email).
3. Ideally you want to set up e-mail forwarding from your old account to this new one you set up so when email arrives, it gets forwarded directly.  I can't explain how to do that on this post as each ISV is different.  You can call their helpdesk and ask how to do this.  The other option is to have your new account "check" your old email for new messages and download.  Outlook.com can do this by going to Settings (the gear in the title bar), then More mail settings, then under Manage your Account, click Your email accounts, which allows you to add a POP account for Add a send-and-receive account, and provide your old email address server, username and password.  Then validate that it works by sending email to your old account, and making sure that you eventually see it in your new account (eventually if you chose Outlook.com to check your email, it could take some time for it to hit your new account)
4. Once you're happy that your old mail is flowing to your new email.  It's time to make the switch to your new account.  You'll want to send an email to ALL of your contacts to tell them of your updated email address.  You'll also want to check any subscriptions you signed up for and unsubscribe from those and resubscribe with your new email address
5. If you still have friends emailing you at your old address, simply reply from your new address and remind them of your email address update.  After a period of time (on the order of Months) when you feel comfortable that people are using your new email address, you can turn off the old POP account you set up in step 3.
6. And you're done!

Lots of people ask me why not stay with their ISP.  Here are my reasons:

1. ISP mail servers typically don't offer calendar and contact service, and are old archaic mail-servers that don't have any features that work with newer devices
2. The use of POP or IMAP uses your data plan on a schedule to check your email.  That's a bunch of data eaten out of your data plan (on a phone for example) that will probably result in no new messages for you.  Newer protocols only use data when you have email
3. The use of POP and IMAP run on a schedule and use data, and as a result, they drain your battery faster than newer protocols
4. ISPs are typically networking experts, they run mail servers because it's common practice for them to offer an email account with your networking.  But it's not their expertise, why not switch to someone who focuses on making these services great?
5. If you move homes to a house outside of a service area for your ISP, Or if you simply want to switch to get a better "deal", you'll loose your email address as a result, which causes your friends to go through the pain as it is.
6. If you travel around the world, access to your email account is slow outside of your ISP network and native country.  World-wide enabled companies like Microsoft, Google, or Yahoo, optimize their service to be access world wide and your service will be far better outside of the country.

And if you aren't sure if you want to use Outlook or GMail, why not make it super easy and use your own domain.  I've moved my email account 5 times since I've had my own domain, and none of my friends are the wiser as the email address never changes, just the back-end service.  If you want to do that, I have instructions here.

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Cloud Sharing your Email, Contacts, Calendar Between Different Devices

I’ve come across a lot of people who still struggle with different devices and having to physically plug them into their computer when they want to sync their calendar or contacts.  Sure, Email is a solved problem for them, but not that pesky Calendar or the list of Contacts.  This post is intended to help those people.  But those people have to embrace “the cloud”…

The cloud sounds scary, but it’s not, you’ve been using it for years, it’s just a server on the Internet that’s always accessible. Sure this can be a single mail server that’s been holding your email until you connect it, or it can be a scale-out solution that offers compute, storage, and database needs, but let’s start small.  Your email server, is in the cloud.  Yes, that same one offered to your by your Internet Service Provider (ISV).  That’s “cloud”.  See, you have email, you’re already using “the cloud”.  Your problem is you either (a), have an e-mail only server that uses POP3, or (b), you’re not taking advantage of the features of your server to leverage contacts and calendar.

If you have an e-mail server that only does email (i.e. only offers you IMAP or POP3 access), then you are living in the stone ages.  IMAP and POP3 are to email what rotary dialing is to the telephone.  The first is to switch to something that offers the email, calendar, contact suite of products.  I find it best to switch to the product that your spouse or significant other is using, primarily because it makes it easier to share things like the calendar.  My preference is Outlook.com, but you can also use GMail or Yahoo! Or if you wanted something more powerful, you could choose Office365.  The bottom line is you need to ditch that ISV email server.  Some ISVs leverage the above services for their email solution.  That’s better than POP3, but I still don’t like being tied to an ISV, because if you move or that ISV gets bought by another, things change, but this is your call.  This may or may not require you to get a different email address.  This is by far the most painful part of the process, so you’ll want to do this part once.  If you want to use your own domain name, so your email address never needs to change.  I have instructions on how to do this with Hotmail / Outlook.com.

Let’s overview the set up that you’re aiming for:

 

This means that each phone, tablet or computer connects directly to the Internet (or cloud) to get your Email (which it does today) and your calendar and your contacts.  This means that the primary location for your E-mail, Calendar and Contacts is in the cloud.  Your devices and computers are just a “view” into that.  While you probably won’t need this with today’s devices. All of my computers are configured to use Exchange Active Sync (EAS).  Apparently Google is the only service that doesn’t use this anymore.

This works for me, and allows me to share my calendar with my wife, so we can always be in sync (provided she enters her events into her calendar!). 

I have the following devices, that are always up to date and never need to be plugged into a computer for “syncing”.

• Windows Phone 8
• Surface RT
• Windows 8 PC (both built in e-mail client, and Outlook 2013)
• iPhone
• iPad
• Blackberry Playbook

This is the set up you “don’t” want, as you are now dependent on your computer, and if you’re computer crashes, or dies, you loose your calendar and contacts.

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Windows Server 2012 Essentials RTM!! (and Eval today!)

Well, The product formerly known as Windows Small Business Server 2012, is finally at RTM!  This was the last version of SBS I had the pleasure of working on, owning the storage system from the ground up as well as the initial design of the Online Backup functionality.  Of course a lot of things change when you leave a team before the first major milestone, so I can’t wait to fire this one up and see where the teammates I left behind took this product.

According to the Office Blog Post on the RTM announcement, the product highlights include:

• Enable a dynamic, modern work style with access from your devices by using Remote Web Access (RWA), and take advantage of Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 devices for a superior experience with rich modern “My Server” apps.
• Enjoy peace of mind knowing that your data is well-protected by complementing your on-site backups with Windows Azure Online Backup, as well as utilizing integrated support for the new Windows 8 File History feature.
• Choose the email and collaboration option that’s right for you, whether that’s in the cloud with Office 365 or a hosted service provider, or running on a local server.
• Quickly and easily respond to increasing data capacity needs with support for Storage Spaces, which allows you to create elastic, resilient storage for your files and folders.
• Run the line-of-business applications that you depend on by leveraging our greatly improved application compatibility, now with a single logo certification for all Windows Server 2012 editions.
• Purchase with confidence knowing that your technology investment can easily grow to Windows Server 2012 Standard if the needs of your business grow.
• Deploy today with full support for 19 languages, all releasing simultaneously.

If you’re itching to try it like I am, you can pop on over to the evaluation center and download the trial version today, which is also on MSDN or TechNet if you prefer those.

Please join me in congratulating the team on another launch of a fantastic product for small businesses.  And we all know you’re going to hook it up to Office365 right??

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Beware Social scammers that call pretending to be the Microsoft HelpDesk

On 9/21/2012, I received my first social engineering hacking attack. An attempt to obtain access to my computer and my credit card, leveraging my stupidity and lack of computer skills :o)
I'm outlining what happened here so you can save yourself if you get a similar phone call.

Apparently the FTC is aware of this and is cracking down on these support calls, but I figured I’d post this here as well, because well, the end is hilarious.  Additionally, these folks seem to be blind calling (aside from knowing your surname) as they didn’t realize that I actually worked for Microsoft.  In some cases, they call right into honeypots just waiting for their call.

Please note that the first few minutes of this call, I was confused as I had 3 tickets open with the *internal* Microsoft helpdesk about random stuff related to my job.  I found the conversation hilarious.

This phone call from 206-397-1127, the caller idea was a bunch of numbers. This is how the call went:

Me: Hello?
Caller: Hello Mr. Daniel? (I have no idea how they got my name)
Me: Hi
Caller: This is the Microsoft Help Desk calling, we have seen issues that your browser is infected with a virus and we're calling you to help you fix your computer.
Me: Oh? (At this point I'm thinking it might be the internal Microsoft helpdesk, but the number is wrong, which I'm aware of)
Caller: Yes, I'm calling because I can help you fix this problem. Is your computer on?
Me: Yes it's on, I'm sitting at it
Caller: Well, click the start button in the bottom right hand corner of your screen
Me: There is no start button (I'm running Windows 8, if you recall, there is actually no start button anymore)
Caller: Yes, it is there, in the bottom left of your screen, all the way at the bottom, all the way to the left
Me: I'm looking there, I do not see a Start button
Caller: ok, we will do this another way, do you have a keyboard?
Me: Yes (I wish I was using a Surface at this point, as I wouldn't have a keyboard either!)
Caller: Ok, beside the CTRL button, there is a button with a flag on it, 4 squares in a flag. push that
Me: (trying to hold in my laughter at this point). Nice try, you obviously don't know that i'm running Windows 8, and there is no start button, SCAMMER! <click>

As a Microsoft employee, I'll tell those of you who aren't, that Microsoft will never call you about a virus on your computer in this fashion. They do provide you with FREE antivirus solution called Security Essentials for Windows.

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How to add a “Send To” shortcut for SkyDrive

With personal cloud computing on the rise with SkyDrive, Google Drive, Drop Box, etc.  you want super easy ways to get things into and out of the Cloud.  If you’re like me, sometimes you’re in a hurry and just need to slap something into the cloud on the way out the door, and organize it later.

Into Windows has a great article on how to add a “Send to SkyDrive” shortcut to the context menu of the shell. You can find that article here.  Basically it boils down to simply putting a shortcut to the SkyDrive folder into your sendto special folder.  You need to be also running the SkyDrive software for Windows.

Here’s what I did, after installing the SkyDrive software

1. Navigate to the folder above your SkyDrive folder, it’s typically c:\users\%username%\ (where %username% is the username of you on your computer)
2. Right-Click on the SkyDrive folder and choose create shortcut.
1. I renamed this file from SkyDrive – Shortcut to just SkyDrive, for a cleaner look
3. Next open up Start, then Run, and type in “shell:sendto ”. This will open another explorer window in your sendto folder. 
4. Move the shortcut created early into this sendto folder.

That’s it! now simply right click on any file you want to send to your SkykDrive, go to the “Send To” option and you’ll see SkyDrive in the list.

Just remember to leave your laptop open long enough to wait for that file to be sync’d to the cloud!

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Get Cloud Services working for you, even when you’re not!

As the saying goes, a user will do things over and over and over again, but a developer will automate it and never touch it again (until something breaks of course).

I am not a developer, but I do have a developer education, and that makes me want to automate stuff.  Why do something over and over again that a computer can handle just fine?  I do this sort of thing on a client computer, and often write scripts using AutoHotKey.  I wrote about it earlier, now’s a good time to check it out. 

I’m now excited to say that I’ve found a way for things to happen for you, without you doing anything.  Getting those beloved Cloud services working for you.

Have you heard about If this then that? or IFTTT (pronounced “lift” without the “L”)

IFTTT is an online “batch” file service that allows you to set a trigger (“if this”), and have an action take place on your behalf (“then that”).  You can learn more about it here.

It’s my new favorite service.  Supporting all kinds of existing services including: Bit.ly, Blogger, Buffer, Craigslist, Date & Time, Delicio.us, Dropbox, Email, Evernote, Facebook, RSS feeds, Flickr, Foursquare, GMail (and almost all of Google’s services that I don’t use), Instagram, Last.fm, LinkedIn, SMS, Stocks, Twitter, Vimeo, Weather, Belkin power, Wordpress, Youtube, and more!

You can then simply create what they call “recipes”, which allows you to set some trigger on some service, and then have a action take place when that trigger happens.  For example, this is a popular one:

It’s that easy, you set up your trigger actions and define your reactions.  In just a day, I’ve created a few recipes:

• I save all my tweets to Evernote (easy and fast searching of historical tweets)
• I automatically tweet blog posts (like this one), and then re-tweet them again later using BufferApp.com
• I have an email alert set up for my favorite stocks
• I automatically blog my Instagram shots on my photoblog.
• I’m going to tweet exactly at Midnight on new years to wish everyone a great new 2013!

Security

What I like most about IFTTT is I never have to give it any of my passwords for my other sites/services, it just simply gets granted access, and I can always revoke it from the target service if I want.

So if you like automation, and you find yourself repeating the same actions over and over again, try out IFTTT

This blog post was automatically tweeted by IFTTT

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Windows 8 Keyboard Shortcuts

I’m a big believer in short-cut keys, moving your hand to your mouse, moving the mouse, and then back to the keyboard is inefficient.  If you can save a few seconds using keyboard shortcuts, and you do this constantly during the day, it’ll save you time. 

Furthermore, as we approach Windows 8, and you end up getting that fancy touch screen, it’s going to be even more important to use keyboard short cuts.  In fact, you can navigate Windows 8 much better with the keyboard than the mouse if you don’t have a touch screen.

So, let’s take a refresher on our keyboard shortcuts:

Shortcut	Action
Ctrl+Shift+Esc	Starts Task Manager.
Windows (tap)	Toggles between the Start screen and the foremost running app (Metro-style) or the Windows Desktop.
Windows+,	Peeks at the Windows desktop.
Windows+.	Snaps application to the left.
Windows+/	Initiate input method editor (IME) reconversion.
Windows+1, Windows+2, etc.	Switch to the (classic) Windows desktop and launch the nth shortcut in the Windows taskbar. So WINKEY + 1 would launch whichever application is first in the list, from left to right.
Windows+Arrow Keys	Aero Snap.
Windows+B	Switch to the (classic) Windows desktop and select the tray notification area.
Windows+C	Display Charms and time/date/notification overlay.
Windows+Ctrl+Tab	Cycle through apps, snapping them as you go.
Windows+D	Toggle Show Desktop (hides/shows any applications and other windows).
Windows+E	Launch Windows Explorer with Computer view displayed.
Windows+Enter	Launch Narrator.
Windows+F	Search Files using the new Windows Search pane.
Windows+H	Open the Share charm.
Windows+I	Display Settings charm.
Windows+J	Swap foreground between the snapped and filled apps.
Windows+K	Display Connect charm.
Windows+L	Lock PC and return to Lock screen.
Windows+M	Minimize the selected Explorer window.
Windows+O	Toggle orientation switching on slate and tablet PCs.
Windows+P	Display the new Project (for "projection") pane for choosing between available displays.
Windows+PgDown	Move the Start Screen or a Metro-style application to the monitor on the right.
Windows+PgUp	Move the Start Screen or a Metro-style application to the monitor on the left.
Windows+Q	Open the Search pane.
Windows+R	Display Run box.
Windows+Shift-.	Move the gutter to the left (snap an application).
Windows+Shift+.	Snaps application to the right.
Windows+Shift+Tab	Cycle through apps in reverse order.
Windows+Shift+V	Cycles through Notification toasts in reverse order.
Windows+Spacebar	Switch input language and keyboard layout.
Windows+Tab	Cycle through apps.
Windows+U	Launch Ease of Access Center.
Windows+V	Cycles through Notification toasts.
Windows+W	Display Settings Search pane
Windows+X	Access the advanced context menu on the Start preview tip.
Windows+Z	Open the App Bar.

Happy Keyboarding!

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Give-Away Contest: Win a Copy of SBS 2011 Configuration from PACKT Publishing

Book Give-away:
Win free copy of the 'Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2011 Standard, Configuring (70-169) Certification Guide', just by commenting!

PACKT has graciously offered TWO copies of (MCTS): Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2011 Standard, Configuring (70-169) Certification Guide to be given away to two lucky winners (winners outside of the USA and Europe will get e-copies only)

How you can win:
To win your copy of this book, all you need to do is come up with a comment below highlighting the reason "why you would like to win this book”.
Duration of the contest & selection of winners:
The contest is valid for 14 days (two weeks), and is open to everyone. Winners will be selected on the basis of their comment posted.


(MCTS): Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2011 Standard, Configuring (70-169) Certification Guide is written by,

• Drew Hills: an active and regular contributor to the SMB IT Professional community in Australia having passed 18 different Microsoft Certification exams so far.
• Robert Crane: Having 15 years of IT experience with a degree in Electrical Engineering as well as Masters of Business Administration, he's been awarded with the Microsoft’s Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award for his contributions to the Office 365 product in 2012.

Using this book readers will learn to manage messaging collaboration and develop management of users, computers and printers. With the understanding of steps, to configure Remote Access, readers will also learn the installation and set up of Windows SBS 2011 Standard with the management of Health and Security and Advanced Configuration amongst others.
(MCTS): Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2011 Standard, Configuring (70-169) Certification Guide  focuses on set of test questions and answers that will prepare you for the actual exam. With easy layout and content, this book helps you learn and maximize your study time in areas where you need improvement. With additional practical resources included, this book will enable you to approach the Configuring (70-169) exam with confidence.

So leave a comment below on why you should win!! Contest ends on 6/22, winners will be picked over the weekend and announced on Monday 6/25.

Copyright Sean Daniel. The data on the website is available "AS IS" with no warranties and confers no rights.

UPDATE FOR WINNERS!!!!

• Tyler Pelletier
• Robin Jones

Congratulations to the Winners! I need these folks to click the email link above and send me an email so I have your email address, which I will provide to PACKT publishing in order for them to contact you to get you your copy of the book.

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My Favorite PlayBook apps

As I mentioned in my last post, I have a BlackBerry PlayBook that I’ve had for about 2 weeks.  I think it’s the 2nd best tablet out there (although can’t wait to try those Windows 8 tablets!) today.  As I eluded to in my post, the biggest factor holding back the PlayBook is the lack of apps in the App World.  Yes, I have seen posts that RIM is working on this, and I’ve even had RIM employees tell me that it’s coming, it’s coming.  But what’s available today? 

First the non-games/productivity apps, my favorites include:

Weather – I was actually super impressed with the built-in weather application.  It’s powered by AccuWeather.com, which I trust more than the iPhone’s Yahoo supplier, so I didn’t need to replace it.  I have “The Weather Network” on my iPad, which you can find under WeatherEye in the App World, it gives more data and is also a great app, but not as pretty as the built in Weather app.

Bing Maps – another built in app that’s great.  I love Bing, and Bing maps, so it was nice to see this just built in.

Glimpse – [view] This is news (or rather RSS) reader that you can connect to Google Reader, or just have separate RSS feeds in it.  The interface is pretty intuitive, and the price is good (free!).  I like it more than GeeReader (also free), which is specifically designed to connect to a Google Reader account.

Poynt – [view] is a great app for finding what’s near you, like businesses, people (phone book), movies, restaurants, Gas and Events.  This one exists in the iTunes store as well, but is for iPhone only, and is probably overshadowed by some of the more popular apps on that platform.  I like this one because it gives the weather for your location as well as stuff that’s local; like events in the area. Also free.

Slacker Radio – [view] This one again came installed.  It’s a music streaming service like Pandora for you American’s, except this one actually works in Canada, and it’s on the PlayBook.  I was happy to see support here as I use SlackerRadio all the time.  Yes it’s Free.

ScoreMobile – [view] This is my second favorite sport tracking app on the iPad (I replaced it with the Canadian TSN/Toronto Sports Network app), so it was nice to see an old favorite in the App World to help me track my hockey, soccer, and football.  Also free.

Blaq – [view] A fantastic Twitter app.  Not quite as good as iPad’s Twitter client or the Tweetbot twitter client, but fully functional and doesn’t look half bad.  The downside of course is you have to pay for this one; it’s $1.99.  But I do use it

BlueBox – [view] While I don’t trust DropBox for their Security Issues, it’s a fine way to transfer files to and from your PlayBook without connecting it in, if you’re ok with the files potentially being exposed to the Internet.  I only do fully public stuff on DropBox, so I’m ok with that, because I don’t care about the data.  The data I want secured I use SkyDrive, but of course there is no PlayBook app for that. BlueBox is free.

FaceBook – [view] The PlayBook FaceBook app looks like the old Windows Mobile (not Windows Phone) version of Facebook, it’s at least somewhat functionally, and I included it simply because people like to use Facebook on Tablets.  Honestly, I’d just use the browser though.  This app is free.

Bing – [view] If I lived in the USA, I bet I could get this app too.  The screenshots make it look just like the iPad version.  But alas, Bing can’t seem to get their apps outside of the United States, the same problem exists on the iPhone.  It’s Free.

As far as games go.  I typically don’t play too many games, unless I’m for some reason disconnected from the Internet (ie. stuck in a metal tube at 35,000 feet).  Here are some that I’ve tried and liked:

Berzerk Ball – [view]  A rather stupid, yet addictive game on how far you can smash a geek.  I warn you, it is rather stupid, but addictive.  It’s Free.

People on My Lawn – [view] A Spin of plants vs Zombies, were you have to kill the humans on your planet by controlling rockets using magnets.  The graphics are great, and the gameplay is somewhat fun.  Might as well check it out given it’s Free.

Doodle Blast – [view] A Puzzle game that you draw lines to get “doodles” into a jar.  Somewhat simple, but puzzle games are always fun. Especially a drawing one, where your ink is limited!.  It’s free.

Rocket Storm – [view] Like the 1990’s game made by Atari called “Missile Command”, except updated.  While the graphics aren’t mind-blowing, the game is now 3D as you have to defend a space station! It’s free.

PlayDoom – [view] I have yet to find a platform this classic game has not been ported to.  I can’t even begin to calculate how many hours I’ve spent playing Doom, Doom II, etc.  But this is a great port of the original Doom game.  Get ready for bad graphics and amazing gameplay.  it’s free.

NFS Undercover – [view] For the car/driver junkies out there.  This one came pre-installed with my PlayBook.  It’s big (200mb) but it’s worth it for some fun driving times, and by worth it I mean it’s free.

Those the apps I have and have liked.  I’ve downloaded a lot more, but they were quick to delete.  I will give RIM credit for the purchasing process.  I do like that I can simply authorize the marketplace to charge my PayPal account.  it’s not yet another company that has my credit card information.  Granted I’ve only bought the Blaq twitter app to date.  There has been a few disappointing free apps, which are quickly erased.  If I had paid for those, I’d be irritated.  App world needs more trials.

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How to Configure a Vanity Domain on Hotmail

The Oatmeal, one of my favorite comic sites, has an info-graphic on what your e-mail address says about you.  While I disagree about the @gmail.com and @hotmail.com priority in life, I’m in pretty much agreement on using your own domain for your e-mail.  Especially for business, and quite possibly also for individuals (or *home* e-mail addresses as you might call them.)

Why do you want to have your own domain name for your e-mail address? Because it gives you long term flexibility without having to update your friends.  using my @seandaniel.com email address has helped me over the years as I first obtained it in University.  This meant I could just point the email domain to the university mailbox, then I moved it to my own SBS 2000 box, then SBS 2003, then SBS 2008, and then I moved it to GMail for a short period of time (which I discovered I didn’t like GMail at all), and now I actually have my personal e-mail hosted on Hotmail, and through all that, I didn’t have to notify my friends once about an email address change.

Naturally I get spam on my account, but Hotmail is so good, I never get any in my inbox, it just goes into the junk email folder, which I pay no attention to unless someone tells me to check my junk email folder.

Side note here: I find that with most spam filters these days, they are “learning” filters.  If you abandon your email account, it can’t learn your preferences with new spam so you end up with some in your inbox.  This is the same for Hotmail and GMail.

So let’s get started.  First you need a domain name.  If you’re in the US or Canada, I strongly suggest using eNom Central or GoDaddy.  Both registrars are incredible, but offer different experiences.  eNom is slightly more expensive, but I consider their UX cleaner and easier to understand.  GoDaddy wins for price though, you just have a gauntlet to run to check out.  So it’s up to you which one you choose.  Outside of the US and Canada, these domain registrars are still phenomenal choices, but there are some “local” registrars (particularly in Germany or Australia) that offer more local offerings you might want to check out.

Once you own a domain, you can do all sorts of things with it, but this post is focused on setting up your email address on Hotmail.  Let’s get started:

1. Navigate over to Domains.Live.com, and sign-in with your LiveID (which is probably an existing Hotmail address)
2. Click on Add Domain
3. On the Create a Windows Live Experience for your domain page, type in the domain name you just bought.  For me it was “seandaniel.com”, and ensure that Set up Windows Live Hotmail for my domain is selected, and click Continue.
4. Click I Accept on the agreement…. after you agree of course. :o)

At this point you need to prove ownership of this domain name and you get a page that walks you through all the settings you need to configure in your DNS provider’s website.

This is a screenshot for one that I created called “foobar21.com” which of course I don’t own, this is just an example.

In a different browser window (since you’ll need to copy and paste from this one), you’ll want to navigate to your domain registrar’s website and log in.

Once logged in, you’ll want to find the host record management or Email/MX record management, that’s where you’re going to make the changes to your domain name. 

Since I use eNom Central, this is how I do it.  eNom has the MX (Mail eXchange) or email records separate than the host records

• Log in, and go to Domains, and then My Domains.
• I click on the domain that I want to manage, in this case, seandaniel.com
• on the next page, I click on Email Settings.

Now I’m ready to set up my email record to match the first item in the list on the Windows Live page.  the “@” record is the root of the domain (i.e. if you want your email address to be @seandaniel.com, that’s the root of the domain instead of @mail.seandaniel.com, which would be under the “mail” host name.  Here is how mine looks:

All I did was copy and paste the Live configuration site into the eNom too. Once the MX record is done, I hit Save and move onto the next record in the Live webpage’s list above.  The rest of the items are done on the Host Management page, so I switch to that.  Here is what mine looks like (I have a lot more but I stripped it down to just the mail records to make things easy to understand):

Again, just a copy and paste above from the Live site into the eNom or your own GoDaddy tool.  Just a few things to note here

1. My TXT record above is a standard (mostly adopted by Microsoft is my opinion) that tells mail servers that receive your email, which mail servers have permission to send on your domains behalf.  So you’re telling other servers that hotmail.com can send mail on your behalf.
2. The SRV record is for using Windows Live Messenger, it’s listed at the bottom of the live page (which is cut off in the screenshot).
3. The CNAME for mail, is one that I set up myself, which you also have to configure on the domains.live.com (under “custom addresses”), which automatically redirects mail.seandaniel.com to Hotmail’s logon page.  Kinda slick, but not necessary.
4. The URL Redirect for * isn’t on all domain providers, it’s another neat DNS trick that eNom does, so if you type in FluffySlippers.seandaniel.com it redirects to my webpage.  Also optional.

Make sure you hit SAVE on your domain registrar’s page.

Now, the next part can take some time.  If you have a domain that’s been around for a while, it’s probably going to finish replicating in < 6 hours or so.  If your domain is new, it could take up to 2-3 days for it to get into all the systems around the Internet.  Regardless, you can keep returning to domains.live.com and refreshing to know when it’s complete.

Now that you have your domain set up, let’s create an account!

At this point, you again to to your management console and hit up the Member Accounts link.  This is where you create your mailbox(es) (I have some domains that I host family email on so in those cases I have multiple email addresses).

On the Member Accounts page

1. Click the Add button to add your first user
2. Give this user an account name, first name, last name, and a password, you can require them to change this when they log in.

That’s it, the account is created.  Now simply go to www.hotmail.com (or mail.domain.com if you set that up!) and log in as this user account.  The mailbox will be created for you upon log in.  The user will set up their new Hotmail account as if they were setting up a new Hotmail account on @live.com or @hotmail.com, complete with security related questions.

That’s all there is to it.  Mail starts flowing to your new Hotmail account with your own vanity domain name.  Create up to 500 email accounts.

Now when Hotmail adds the ability to add “aliases” to vanity domain names, I’ll be even *that* much more happy with the situation.

Oh, and one more thing, that Hotmail account that you signed into domains.live.com as? be sure to link it in the options to your new Hotmail account, then you can use either to log in.  You can also get the mail from one Hotmail account into another, so you only need to check one place as people learn your new vanity email address!

You can do this with GMail too, but they classify you as a business and I believe charge you $50/year, with Hotmail this functionality is free!  The link to get started on Gmail.

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