Posted by Jake | Posted in Techie Stuff | Posted on 15-11-2008-05-2008
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I took the dive into 64bit computing today by installing Vista Ultimate x64 onto my work laptop. It was then I remembered that the Cisco VPN client wasn’t supported on a 64bit OS. After some digging and Googling, I found the NCP Secure Entry Client. After a weird install process (I was installing VMWare Workstation at the same time which isn’t recommended, but I was in a hurry), it worked! I was able to import the pcf files used by the Cisco VPN Client and connect to a customer’s network! Sweet!
It’s not free though, you’ll have to cough up $144, but it looks to be well worth it if you want to run 64bit Windows.
On an unrelated note, wish me luck on the 70-236 Exchange 2007 exam on Friday. I think I’ll just go ahead and sit the rest of the Exchange exams next week to complete the MCITP: Enterprise Messaging certification too. 
Posted by Jake | Posted in Techie Stuff | Posted on 25-10-2007-05-2008
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Man, could I go places with that headline…
According to my employer, I’m a Cisco engineer. That’s fine, I’m cool with that, and I’m always up for learning new things. But my first techno love was the Microsoft side of things. (I wonder if I should turn comments off now) For some reason, I’ve taken a big interest in the new Microsoft technologies like Exchange 2007, Office Communicator Server 2007, and System Center. Being a Cisco weenie now, I have fallen behind in the Microsoft world and I think I’ve forgotten a lot of the idiosyncrasies about Active Directory and Exchange. Time to fire up the test servers again and re-learn.
At least with MS products, I can re-learn this stuff in my home lab while with Cisco it gets more difficult to get my hands on specific equipment (like a Wireless LAN Controller). I dunno why but learning new MS technologies has always been easy for me. Cisco just plain confuses me sometimes. Maybe it’s because new Cisco products are usually purchased and repackaged while MS does a lot of their own stuff.
I love what I see with Server 2008 “Longhorn”. I love the new Server Manager module based install. I didn’t install Core just yet (I wanted to see it all in it’s glory), but I’ll be playing with it some more when I get time. I think the module based install will serve small business customers well. I deal with overbloated Windows servers it seems like on a daily basis now. It’d be great to just install what’s needed and that’s it.
I do have one question…what is the real reason Exchange 2007 is only supported in a production environment on a 64bit OS? I understand the reasoning for more processing power to handle the additional databases that Exchange 2007 supports, but if you only use one or two stores, (say for a small business), why not offer a 32 bit version? Maybe SBS 2008 has this?
Someone please enlighten me…
