At work, I have a project that has been going on for a month or two. It originally started out as replacing our Hosted Exchange 2003 environment with a new fancy Exchange 2007 environment and add on extra features. To provision this, we have decided to abandon our own provisioning system due to various issues with documentation (or lack there of it) from Microsoft. So, we have decided to drink the Kool-Aid and are rolling with their HMC (Hosted Messaging and Collaboration). At first we were going to roll with the 4.0 version but a consultant stated that HMC 4.5 was expected to be out on 6/13. As it turns out, it was released yesterday.

As many of your may have heard, Iowa is flooding as are other parts of the midwest. Cedar Rapids is really bad from what I hear.

I’m in Des Moines where things are bad, but we’re not completely screwed yet. I will be posting pictures of the flooding as I can. They can be found in this flickr set.

Let’s hope for dry weather.

In case you missed it, Apple had a small announcement today.

Yes, the iPhone 3G was announced with all the features that we expected. Obviously, 3G data speeds which are near WIFI speeds. This is pretty awesome for those that have experienced it. Also, Exchange support with push email and calendars. Better iWork and M$ office support. And an app store with a ton of sweet apps.

All I need now is an ssh or terminal application for the iPhone 3G and I WILL be picking one of these babies up.

Are you freaking kidding me?

A man wearing a T-shirt depicting a cartoon character holding a gun was stopped from boarding a flight by the security at Heathrow’s Terminal 5.

Brad Jayakody, from Bayswater, central London, said he was “stumped” at the objection to his Transformers T-shirt.

Mr Jayakody said he had to change before boarding as security officers objected to the gun, held by the cartoon character.

Airport operator BAA said it was investigating the incident.

A tornado struck northeast Iowa a week ago, and seven people were killed. About 220 homes were destroyed, and much of the downtown of Parkersburg, Iowa, (pop.: 1,800) was leveled.

We see these stories in the news an awful lot this time of year, and we feel sad for those who have been affected, but for the most part we move on. This one piqued my interest because four NFL players — Green Bay defensive end Aaron Kampman, Detroit defensive end Jared DeVries, Jacksonville center Brad Meester and Denver offensive lineman Casey Wiegmann — come from there, and I read where Kampman had sent out an urgent appeal for help. So I phoned him to hear his story, and it made me stop in my tracks.