IT Tips - November

It Tips – November

Ah, November. It’s almost time for Thanksgiving and the shameless consumption of delicious food that ensues.

What’s Inside:

Tech Section

·         Exchsrv Retirement

·         Favorite and Search Folders

Exchsrv Retirement

It seems like only yesterday that Exchsrv was smiling disk to disk while gleefully relaying your email.

Alas, Exchsrv’s time has come. Father Technology has claimed another poor soul and Exchsrv has been retired. Look at those eyes; they were vibrant, jubilant and scintillating. Oh, how we’ll miss you, Exchsrv! Sorry about that, I got a little carried away…

You may have heard the term ‘virtualization’ tossed around a bit. Bill has been painstakingly working to virtualize our server environment and the Exchsrv retirement is a major milestone in the virtualization project. We thought an IT Tip would be nice to let everyone know what is going on behind the scenes.

What is virtualization?

Put simply, virtualization is the process of making virtual servers… That was helpful, right?

Really, it means using a single, very powerful piece of hardware to emulate multiple pieces of hardware. Essentially a single server acts like multiple servers. Virtualized servers negate the need to have several physical servers sucking down electricity and pumping out heat. Virtualization allows a single entity to behave just like multiple physical servers. It’s cleaner, greener and much more efficient.

Why did Exchsrv retire?

In the month of September we were able to use our shiny new virtual servers to replace Exchsrv. Our new virtual email server, Exchsrv2, will be more reliable, perform better, and allow for much more flexibility (from an IT standpoint). Exchsrv wasn’t the first server to be virtualized and it won’t be the last.

Replacing Exchsrv was a big undertaking and we’re proud to be moving into the future with virtualization!

Favorite and Search Folders

Favorite Folders

Do you have a few Outlook folders that you frequent above all others? Good news! Outlook allows you to designate a particular folder as a ‘Favorite folder’. Favorite folders show up on the top left of your Outlook window for easy access. You may have noticed Outlook already has three favorite folders designated by default. Those folders are: Inbox, Unread Mail and Sent Items.

 

To set a folder as a favorite, simply right click on the desired folder and choose ‘Add to Favorite Folders’.

The folder will now display on the top left for quick accessibility! This can be done with any Outlook folder you choose.

  

Search Folders

Outlook has another neat folder feature called ‘Search Folders’. These folders perform functions greater than simply housing email. An example of a search folder is the ‘Unread Mail’ folder that you have by default. The Unread Mail folder actually scours your mailbox for mail you haven’t read and only displays those messages.

Search folders are located near the bottom of your mailbox below your Sent Items.

If you want to create a new search folder (or replace an accidently deleted one) simply right click on ‘Search Folders’ and choose ‘New Search Folder’.

From here you can create the type of search folder you need. Unread mail will recreate an accidentally deleted unread mail search folder.

You can create search folders that display email from specific people, flagged email, or even create your own custom search criteria! Play around and you may find something useful. J

You can also add your search folders to your favorites! Simply right click them like any other folder you wish to favorite.

Have a great month, everyone!

-Keith

Would you like YOUR question featured in a future IT Tip? The glory could be all yours! Simply email me a question and the answer could be on the blog next month!