Out to Pasture

Some might have noticed (hopefully) that the URL for my blog has changed. The advent of FIM and the passing of the domain name were motivation to change (the URL).

One last gasp though, because I love this logo!

ILM2 Renamed to Forefront Identity Manager 2010

Phew, the cat is out of the bag! MMS --> MIIS --> ILM --> FIM
(Couldn't resist a one-up to Brad's SmartArt)

TEC 2009 Decks Available

FYI - The decks from TEC2009 are available now:
http://jacksonshaw.blogspot.com/2009/04/tec-presentations-now-available.html

YOU Can File HIGH Priority Bugs for ILM2 Too

At TEC I got to chat with somebody from the ILM team and learned something pretty neat. Bugs filed on Connect are not just tossed aside, they actually make it into the ILM team's bug tracking system with high priority. The reasoning is that bugs found while the product is in Release Candidate are customer facing bugs that need high priority.

Enthusiasm here should be tempered, because AFAIK a bug of this priority can still fall victim to "won't fix" unless it has enough support.

The moral of the story is: working with pre-release software is not easy (unless you're running Win7) but if bugs aren't filed then customers and the ILM team lose because those bugs won't get the attention they need.

Exchange Labs MA and Certificate Authentication

Anybody using the Exchange Labs MA may have had a rough time with certificates since the only authentication supported by the MA in R2 was client certificate authentication.

PowerShell is your friend when troubleshooting certificate issues. For example, to verify the existence of the certificate in the correct store you could run this from the PowerShell command line:

Get-ChildItem -path cert:\LocalMachine\Root where {$_.subject -like '*thatschool*'} fl

Output from the command on my computer is:
Subject : E=ed-desk@microsoft.com, CN=sapipartner.com, O=Oxford Computer Group thatschool.org, L=Snohomish, S=WA, C=US
Issuer : CN=Microsoft Secure Server Authority, DC=redmond, DC=corp, DC=microsoft, DC=com
Thumbprint : 49B71EE8925C4028150874C78E8B180E15C75FAD
FriendlyName : Oxford Computer Group thatschool.org
NotBefore : 7/3/2008 7:39:46 AM
NotAfter : 7/3/2009 7:39:46 AM
Extensions : {System.Security.Cryptography.Oid, System.Security.Cryptography.Oid, System.Security.Cryptography.Oid, System.Security.Cryptography.Oid...}

What does that prove? Well it proves that you've installed the certificate into the correct store so that ELMA can find it. If you still get authentication errors then you've at least ruled this one out.

PowerShell Breakpoints!!!

PowerShell is one of those things that is just too cool. For the longest time I've been writing scripts, and when I run out of road with scripts I would resort to managed code. The debugging environment for managed code is excellent with breakpoints and such, which is why I would tend to favour managed code.

Today while fiddling with a PowerShell script I tried running it in the PowerShell ISE (Integrated Scripting Environment). Had this sneaky little icon been named PowerShell IDE I might have clued in earlier.

Anyhow, running scripts in here gives you the command line feel, but also gives you breakpoints if you want to stop a script mid-stride to analyze the environment and variables.

AWESOME!