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For years, I used a program called Bootpart to add non-Windows NT operating systems to the NT boot loader. When I played around with Linux, for example, I’d skip installing GRUB or LILO; instead I’d boot into Windows and use Bootpart to add the Linux partition to BOOT.INI. Since I never really got the hang of Linux – or had specific issues with specific distros – I was always going to want to boot into Windows by default. By using Bootpart I could continue using the NT Boot Loader; when the time came to uninstall Linux, I only needed to delete the Linux partitions and make a couple of tweaks to the BOOT.INI file… and Linux was gone!

Sadly, Bootpart hasn’t been updated in ages, and is not compatible with Windows Vista’s new bootloader. So last night, when I installed Windows XP on a system with Windows Vista already installed, I needed some way to add XP to Vista’s bootloader. Enter EasyBCD. This handy (and FREE!) program can add entries for NTLDR-based Windows operating systems (Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows XP) to the Vista boot loader, and also supports adding Linux, Mac OS X and BSD installations as well. It’s fast and easy, and it does what it says it’ll do. If you need to add a new operating system to your Vista bootloader, EasyBCD is the way to go!

Microsoft Exchange can host email for several domains. Many companies take advantage of this. For example, they may have a domain for their parent company and individual domains for each separate company or product. So the company could use a single Exchange server to get email for PARENTCOMPANY.COM, SUBCOMPANY1.COM, SUBCOMPANY2.COM, PRODUCTNAME1.COM and so on.

This is completely transparent for the end user, and that’s usually a good thing. However, if someone is getting emails from all Exchange domains, there’s no easy way for them to tell which domain the email was originally sent to. Let’s say that Bob works for ABC Company. ABC Company is the parent company of TUV Company and XZY Company. Bob has email addresses in the form of Bob@ABCCompany.com, Bob@TUVCompany.com and Bob@XYZCompany.com. The Exchange server will deliver email addressed to any of those addresses to Bob’s Exchange mailbox… but Bob won’t easily be able to tell which address the email was originally sent to. If Bob tries to create an Outlook rule to “move email with ‘Bob@XYZCompany.com’ in the recipient’s address” to a folder in his inbox, the rule will fail, because Exchange treats all SMTP addresses equally.

However, if Bob enters each email address into a separate rule that searches for the address as “specific words in the message header” the rule will work. This is because Outlook will scan the actual headers of each email for “Bob@ABCCompany.com”, “Bob@TUVCompany.com” and\or “Bob@XYZCompany.com”. Bob can then have Outlook move the email to “ABCCompany.com” “TUVCompany.com” or “XVZCompany.com” folders in his Inbox, or perform any number of other notifications.

This is not new knowledge or anything. For some reason, Microsoft has never made this explicitly clear to anyone, and there are tons of posts on Internet message boards looking for a solution to this very problem. Since Microsoft couldn’t be bothered to explain this clearly in Outlook (or simply make the “move email with ‘Bob@XYZCompany.com’ in the recipient’s address” rule work with Exchange SMTP addresses), this question comes up somewhat often.

Did you know that mailbucket.org will convert emails sent to any of its addresses to an RSS feed? And not only is it free, there’s not even a sign-up process!

All you have to do is go to the following address in a web browser:

http://www.mailbucket.org/USERNAME.xml

where USERNAME is the user name you’d like to use with Mailbucket. If you see an existing RSS feed, try another user name. If you see “No Messages” then you can assume that that user name is available. You can then use USERNAME@mailbucket.org as your email address and http://www.mailbucket.org/USERNAME.xml as your RSS feed’s address. Any email sent to USERNAME@mailbucket.org will be converted to RSS and pushed out to your client.

Why would anyone want to do this? Maybe you’re on several mailing lists, and rather than get 300 emails a day you’d prefer getting 300 RSS posts a day. Maybe you use an “online” RSS reader like Google Reader and want to access the information in the email\feeds from many computers. Maybe your company won’t allow you to receive personal emails at work, but is OK with you getting an RSS feed. Maybe your group\team needs to share information and would rather use RSS instead of email.

Whatever the case may be, this is still a pretty neat trick. I’m subscribed to several Yahoo! Groups, and instead of getting dozens of emails every day in several different folders, they all just come as RSS feeds into a single folder. Neat!

WARNING: Anyone can subscribe to this RSS feed simply by entering any random USERNAME into the Mailbucket address in their RSS client. So it’s best not to forward anything confidential and\or sensitive to your mailbucket address.

Most “hotfixes” (patches) for Microsoft’s Windows and Office products are available as simple downloads from MS’s website. However, many hotfixes – typically those for “just discovered” issues, issues that for some reason only affect a tiny number of computers, or issues that might require long and complex testing before release – required a phone call to Microsoft’s support line. However, as of this week, that policy is no more. You may download those “call Microsoft” hotfixes simply by using this form on MS’s site. Geeks and IT support folks might want to bookmark that page.